


Can you trust a Hydra agent?

by Mycroffed



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hydra!Clint, M/M, Ronin - Freeform, based on a prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-04-08 16:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4312722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mycroffed/pseuds/Mycroffed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronin is sent into a circus to kill one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s  undercover agents and Phil is sent to take him out. But then Ronin gets hurt and he loses every memory of being a Hydra agent and becomes Clint Barton. Will he be able to earn S.H.I.E.L.D.'s trust?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story will be 14 chapters long and it will probably be more than 25k words. Well I hope so. This is the prologue, so this is the shortest chapter (probably).  
> Thanks for reading, kudoing and commenting!

Ronin had gone undercover before. It had almost become a routine by now. He’d get his memory wiped and his background implanted so that he’d definitely not make any mistakes or blow his cover. This time, he had the cover of a young circus artist who tried to earn a bit of money on the side. He had spent months trying to get familiar with the people in the circus, with his subject. Months of pretending to be someone who actually cared. He didn’t, in fact. Well, he cared about some things (not getting punished for ruining the mission, no new torture, obeying Hydra’s orders) but those weren’t important in this situation.

Well, they sort of were. They were important in the sense that if he didn’t get the situation back under his control, they would all come his way, every single Hydra agent in the neighbourhood would come to kill him. The situation had started off the way he had planned. The victim was doing his daily routine – smoking his cigarette before counting his money in his caravan – and Ronin had prepared himself – and his bow, his beloved bow – to shoot the man from the roof of his own caravan.

But then another team of four men had showed up. It was a small team, led by a balding, light brown haired man. Ronin frowned slightly as he tried to adapt the plan so that he could kill the other four. Five deaths and nobody would ever know. He decided to shoot the subject first, to get the mission done and over with and then he’d deal with the other four later.

He had believed in his chances. He knew that if he acted fast enough, the other four men wouldn’t even notice a single bloody thing. Well, until they had an arrow sticking out of their neck. He took a deep breath before pulling his first arrow a n d s t r e t c h I n g b a c k a n d “Wham!” The arrow punctures his victim’s throat and he hides for cover, out of sight for the team on the ground dressed in their black and white uniforms.

A few seconds after the arrow had landed, the leader looked up at him and shouted something inaudible at his men. His lips were too far away to lip read them easily, but he could make out some words. “Take… out…” Ronin doubted that he’d been talking about the food, but the gestured that accompanied the words was clear for all. _Take him out._

_*_

Phil was called in to protect one of their agents who was undercover, trying to catch a group of thieves that used the circus as a cover. But there had been a rumour that Hydra was after the same group of thieves. Phil was pretty sure that the Hydra agent sent on this mission, would leave no survivors. And he knew he was right as soon as he spotted the figure who was shooting arrows down on both his victim and his team.

He shouted orders to Fitz, Simmons and May to spread out and take cover. He knew who the agent was. He had heard a lot about this particular man. He knew that his name was Ronin, but nobody had ever seen him before, the only thing people knew about him was that he shot arrows with an incredible accuracy.

He cursed to himself as he watched one of Ronin’s arrows pierce the undercover agent’s throat. He abandoned his cover and rushed to the man, attempting to save the man’s life.

“Come on, Jasper, don’t you dare die on me.” He said under his breath as he pulled the man into cover. “I won’t let you die, alright, I’m not gonna let you die.”

“It’s not a bad way to die, Phil. We always knew this could happen.” He whispered softly as he looked at the agent. “Just bring my body home.” After those words, his eyes slowly fall shut and his body fell completely still.

Phil looked up at the roof where Ronin was still shooting arrows at his team. His eyes were burning with a new found hate for the man and he abandoned his cover to call out orders to the rest.

“Take him out!”

He had his own gun out and started shooting in Ronin’s general direction. He wasn’t a great shot, but he shot so often, that he just had to hit the man sometime. A cry from up the roof told him that he had finally hit the guy and that bought him some time to run inside the building. He knew that he had to be careful, the man was dangerous and would not hesitate to kill him. He heard soft cries coming from the roof and realized that the man was keeping hostages there.

When he got to the roof, he spotted an abandoned bow and quiver, filled with all sort of trick arrows, but no Ronin. Or he didn’t think so at least. What he did see, was a group of blindfolded circus members. He rushed towards them and took the blindfolds off and untied them.

“Don’t worry.” He muttered, just a basic phrase so that they trust him. “I’m Phil Coulson and I’m from S.H.I.E.L.D., I’m here to protect you.”

As soon as they’re untied, they run off to the side of the roof, looking down. Phil frowned and followed them, looking down. On the ground – well, on a car in fact – was a man lying unconscious, with a bleeding head wound and at least a broken arm. Once again, Phil cursed and he ran downstairs again, already calling for medical backup.

 

*

 

Ronin managed to take cover for the first few shots from both the balding S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but also from the other agents. He smirked briefly at his blindfolded victims. They knew him as Clint Barton, who ran away from home after his parents died in a car accident, but they couldn’t be further from the truth.

When the shooting stopped for a moment, Ronin jumped up and got his bow and arrow to shoot one of the other hiding agents. But he shouldn’t have done that, because as soon as he abandoned cover, he was shot by the balding agent. He couldn’t stop a cry escaping him as he stammered backwards towards the edge of the roof.

“Aww, body, no.” He grumbled softly as he realized that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from falling down. He stumbled backwards, tripped over the edge, his bow falling out of his hand before he fell off the roof.

As he was falling, he tried to reach for a ledge, but he failed – of course he did, in situations like this, he was quite clumsy. He couldn’t stop himself from hitting the car. He could hear some of his bones break and groaned in pain, black spots swimming in his vision. He vaguely spotted the balding man looking down at him, along with his now freed hostages – damn it – but his vision turned blurry and soon he drifted into the comforting darkness of unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting as regularly as I can, but I'm not going to decide on a weekly day to post the next chapter. So enjoy this chapter!  
> Thanks for reading, kudoing and commenting!

Once Phil arrived on the ground floor, he rushed to the car where the young man was laying on – well, once he was closer he could see that the figure wasn’t necessarily a young man rather than a man about a decade younger than him. He crawled on the car so that he could check the man’s wounds. He cursed as he noticed the head wound, which was still bleeding quite badly. He took off his jacket and gently pressed it against the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

The medical assistance he had called for arrived a few minutes later, right when the blood was starting to stop coming out. The head paramedic took over from him and the others started to splint the man’s arms and right leg. Phil got off the car and walked to the side of the building where the circus people – who Ronin had kept hostage – were now standing, staring at the car.

“So… You know him?” Phil asked casually. He needed to get some more information about the man so he could figure out if the man was worth taking back to S.H.I.E.L.D. or not.

The man looked at him for a second and nodded. “Yes. He was my assistant slash student. My name is Duquesne. Nice to meet you.”

“Agent Coulson.” He said, holding his hand out towards Duquesne. He shook it and smiled politely at him. “So who is he? I mean, his name.”

“Oh, he’s Clint Barton. He joined us about a month ago now. He said that he ran away from his brother and a foster house. But he’s a bit of a loner. I’ve been teaching him how to fight with swords and he’s a natural.”

“A natural, huh?” Phil said softly. “That’s interesting. I’ll definitely talk to him when he’s awake again.” He glanced up at the man. “So did you get a good look at Ronin?”

“Not really, I’m sorry. A hit on the head and waking up on a rooftop, blindfolded will do that.”

Phil laughed softly. “Yeah you’re right. But there were no signs as to who he was or anything?” The agent needed to find Ronin, and he needed to find him soon.

“Well, no. Though I think that he was with us at the circus, the only one who has skills to match him is Clint. And he would never hurt a fly with his bow.”

A frown appeared on the agent’s forehead. “I’m taking him into custody. You’ll see him again when he’s healed and I’m sure that he’s not Ronin.” He walked to the paramedics and told them to make sure that the man would not be able to run away from his bed, just in case he was the Hydra agent he was looking for. After that, he quickly made sure that all the hostages were fine before he drove along in the ambulance to the hospital.

He couldn't keep his eyes off the man, mainly because he was wondering if it was possible that he had finally caught the famous and notorious Ronin. He couldn't help but notice that the man was still quite young and apart from the scarring on his right wrist - it was no scarring from cutting himself, but more like the hand had been cut off and sowed back on later. But the hand looked completely normal, completely human.

Phil placed his hand on the wrist, gently tracing the scars and the paramedic didn't try to stop him, he was just as curious about the scars as the agent was. The skin felt incredibly cool to the touch and a frown appeared on Phil's forehead. It was too cold to be human, so he moved his hand towards the elbow of the man, slowly tracing the skin. It became quite hot quite abruptly as he felt some sort of edge under the skin. His frown deepened as he let it go and decided to ask the man about it when he woke up again.

Once at the hospital, the paramedics took Clint Barton out of the ambulance and brought him to a room to fix him up completely. The man was still unconscious, even when the doctors were done with him a couple of hours later. Phil was let in the room another hour later and even then Clint was still unconscious.

The agent was waiting patiently for the man to wake up, but even the doctors were getting worried that he was still not awake. The doctors were preparing to go home as Phil was still sitting next to him, not planning on letting the man out of his sight any time soon. One of the nurses came in to ask him if he would need a bed to sleep in when the form in the bed stirred and slowly opened his eyes.

“Welcome back, Mr Barton.” The nurse said softly as she smiled to him. “How are you feeling?”

Phil watched as Barton looked around, confused, wondering why the hell he was in a hospital. “I…. I don’t know. Why am I not at the circus?" He mumbled softly.

"You were kidnapped by a man called Ronin and you fell down from a roof." The nurse explained to the archer. "But now you're safe. You have a broken arm and some bruised ribs. You'll probably have a couple of weeks of recovery to look forward to, but apart from that, you're perfectly fine." The nurse smiled reassuringly. "We'll only keep you here a couple of days and then you'll be allowed to go with S.H.I.E.L.D. to one of their locations."

Phil took this as his cue and got up before walking over to the bed. "I also have a few questions for you, Mr. Barton. But they can wait for a while if you don't feel too comfortable answering questions right now."

"I... I don't remember anything from after dinner yesterday." Clint explained. "But I will answer anything and everything I can." He said softly.

"Of course, that's okay, take all the time you need." Phil nodded. "I just wanted to let you know that you can't leave here until you have answered my questions."

"Alright, sir." He nodded as well. "There aren't many places I can go, I'm just a circus boy. The only thing I can do well is archery..."

"I'm sure that that is not true, Mr Barton, but how about you go back to sleep? You need to be well rested before we continue with the questions."

"Yes, sir." Clint repeated before he felt the pull of the drugs that the nurse was giving him, guiding him into a comfortable sleep.

 

*

 

Over the next couple of days, Phil stayed at the hospital with Clint, looking after him and when the archer was lucid enough, the Agent took the chance to ask the man questions. Over the different sessions of asking questions, he learned that the man, after surviving quite a difficult childhood with an abusive father, he had run away to the circus, where he had stayed with his brother, Barney Barton, until his mentor, Trickshot, asked him to join him and his brother as they stole money from the visitors of the circus. When he refused this, he ran away once again. This was where it got difficult when Phil asked questions about this. The first time, Clint simply started to freak out and shut down - the nurses needed to sedate him to get him to calm down again. The second time Phil asked about this, he was still pretty freaked out, but he could answer the question about what exactly happened and where he went afterwards.

After he ran away from the circus, he went to the army, where he got up to the rank of Captain before he was sent back home after an unspecified accident. He then joined the circus once again where he joined Duquense, who trained him more in shooting a bow and fighting with his swords.

By the time that the doctors decided that Clint had recovered enough to go with Phil to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, the agent was convinced that Clint was in no way Ronin or related to the notorious Hydra soldier. So that's why, even though Clint was still on his way to recovery, Phil offered him a job at S.H.I.E.L.D. as an agent - or at least starting as a junior one, with Phil as his Supervising Officer.

Clint was happy enough to accept the offer and he couldn't help but smile as the agent pushed him in his wheelchair when he was allowed to go to his new home, since the circus had moved on without him - Phil might have made a phone call to tell Duquense that he didn't have to wait for Clint to return.

As soon as they had left the hospital, Clint got up from the wheel chair and attempted to walk without his crutches, but he almost fell over and Phil was immediately by his side to catch him. With a weak smile and a soft "Thank you, sir." Clint accepted the crutches and limped towards the black car that was waiting to bring them to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. Once in the car, Phil made sure that he sat as far away from the circus boy as he could to make it not too uncomfortable.

Clint couldn't remember how long it had been since he'd been in a decent, comfortable car, so all he did was stare out of the window in awe as the city moved by. The entire half hour the car ride took, Clint didn't do much more than stare and smile. Phil couldn't help but think that the circus boy was actually pretty adorable the way he was acting like a little boy who was allowed out of the house for the first time.

Once they arrived, Phil helped Clint out of the car, which earned him another "Thank you, sir". After a brief hesitation, the archer limped towards the building and as Phil joined him, he shot a smile to his soon to be supervising officer. Guiding the man to the room that would be his, Phil quickly explained the rules about where Clint was allowed to go and where he couldn't go.

Clint made himself comfortable on his bed and smiled softly at the agent. "You don't have to stay here with me, sir, I'm probably going to sleep now. Those drugs from the hospital make me pretty sleepy." To reinforce his point, a yawn followed briefly afterwards.

Phil couldn't help but yawn as well, earning a brief smirk from the archer, before he nodded. "Alright, I'll leave you alone then. If there's anything you need help with, just call me, I left my number on your nightstand."

"Thank you, sir." Clint smiled again. "I'll let you know if I need your help."

Phil nodded and left the room to arrange the paper work for making Clint a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. - or at least subscribe him for all the necessary tests for him to become an agent.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've screwed up. Shit. Anyway.  
> Thanks for reading, kudo'ing and commenting!

Clint recovered in three weeks and a couple of days. Most of his time was spent in bed and he got bored easily. Coulson brought him books to read and games to play while the agent himself took care of his paperwork. Clint didn't want to admit that he couldn't read, so he just flipped the pages every so often while making up stories in his own head.

One day, Coulson had brought no paperwork with him and instead, he had brought his own book to read. Clint was _reading_ and while he wasn't watching, the agent took the opportunity to look at the man in the hospital bed, take in what he was doing exactly. When he got up again to leave - after a full hour of Clint gazing - he smiled fondly at the young man and asked if he could read.

Clint looked up surprised. "O-Of course I can, sir." He said, not wanting his secret to get out. He was scared that if the man knew that he couldn't read, that he wouldn't be accepted as an agent. He had tried to teach himself when he was younger but he never had the discipline to keep up with it. So now, after living with the circus people and after that Hydra, he had never learned how to read or write anything more than his name.  
  
"And now the truth please." Coulson crossed his arms and looked sceptically at Clint. "I've watched you, Barton. You've been staring at the pages for the entire period I've been here, your mind quite obviously anywhere but in the world the book created."  
  
An embarrassed blush spread over his cheeks as he explained how and why he had never learned to read. The look Coulson gave him was not one filled t pity, but rather one of resolution.  
  
"I'm going to teach you how to read." The agent stated right before he left Clint's room.  
  
*  
  
Over the next few days, Coulson visited as often as he could, always bringing simple but challenging books with him. It started with books on the alphabet, so he could learn that, then he brought a small notebook for Clint that he could use to practice his writing in. After that, once Clint had mastered the basics, Coulson started to bring smalls books with fairy tales in them. By the time that Clint was released from the hospital, the man could read a SHIELD report, albeit really slowly.  
  
And Clint? He loved it. The nurses found him writing away in his little notebook every time they came to check on him. Either he was sitting there copying the words from the books the agent had left behind for him to read, or he was trying to come up with how to write some of the words he knew. The next time Coulson came over, they'd go over them and the man would correct his writings.  
  
The archer was getting the most attention he'd had ever since he ran away from his foster home - and in that place he had only gotten negative attention, so anything Coulson was prepared to give him, he soaked it up, every single word of it. When he finished his first book without any help, he felt proud. When he wrote down his first file without any spelling mistakes, his heart roared in his chest. And the best part about doing those things was that Coulson was there when he did them, and he looked at him with a look that was filled with as much pride as Clint had ever seen it. It made his heart beat faster and made him want to risk everything, just to get that look again.

By the time that he had mastered reading and writing, his body was recovered and Clint was able to start his physical training. Of course he would get extra time to practice with his bow, but first of all, S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to know how far his fighting skills reached and how good he was with other things than his bow.

As a circus boy, he shouldn't have much combat training, but Clint had already noticed in the way some of his reflexes reacted that he had at least some training. So his first training day, six weeks after he had landed in the hospital, he was facing Coulson - he had been pulling enough pranks the first three weeks at HQ that he had already a reputation. Nobody wanted to be his supervisor or work with him.

Clint took a deep breath as he faced the man who had brought him in in the first place. He got in a defensive position - more out of habit than anything else - and hesitated. Coulson was standing there, his arms next to him, in a non threatening way. And yet Clint still hesitated.

"Come on, Barton, what are you waiting for? Show me what you've got." Phil was challenging him and who was he to run away from a challenge?

He jumped forwards, his right hand - the one with the scars - formed in a fist and raised up in an attempt to harm Coulson. Something inside him seemed to take over. Coulson seemed to see that as well since he got in a defensive position to fend off Clint's attack. The Agent succeeded in fending off the first fist, but the second one - the non scarred one - was aimed at his stomach and that one connected. Coulson groaned as he doubled over.

Clint immediately snapped out of it and moved away from the man. "I'm sorry, sir." He said, almost immediately. "I didn't mean... I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You didn't mean...? Barton, what you just did was remarkable. People train years to be able to fight like this. Don't apologize for being able to fight. Where did you learn that?"

Clint shrugged as he stood there, every hint of hostility towards Coulson completely gone. "I dunno. It just happened, I guess." He looked down at the agent's feet. "Something inside me seemed to take over."

"Something took over?" Coulson frowned slightly. "That doesn't sound good. Do you know what it was exactly?"

Clint shook his head. "No. Of course I don't, I wouldn't... I would never deliberately harm you."

Coulson nodded and narrowed his eyes at the circus boy. "We'll put you in a higher training group. There's no point in you starting with the beginners now, is there? Until I have arranged this, you will be training with me and of course, you can still train with your bow anytime you need."

Clint nodded as well and sent a brief smile towards the man. "Thank you, sir." He'd been saying that an awfully lot the last couple of weeks. Not that he minded, at least not when it was directed at Coulson. Any other man would have been different. "Do I have to decide on another weapon?"

Coulson looked up surprised. "Do you want to be trained with another weapon? If so, which one?"

"A sword." Clint smiled. "I've always liked sword fighting."

"Now that that's decided then, let's continue our training." The agent said. "And worry about the paperwork later."

 

*

 

After three weeks, it became clear to Coulson that Clint was one of the best fighters at S.H.I.E.L.D. He had taught the boy - who appeared to have much more training than he let on - everything he knew and the archer had absorbed it and adopted it as his own. He could easily hold up with the man in a sparring competition, and Coulson suspected that Barton was holding back on him. When he had confronted the boy about it, he had received a smirk and a snarky comment in return. That convinced him that he was.

Phil decided that it was time for the archer to go on his first mission and of course, he was going to accompany him. It was a fairly simple mission, get in, grab the intel and get out again. There were no expected complications. Phil placed Clint on top of a roof and ordered him to shoot everything non-S.H.I.E.L.D. that moved. The man nodded and took his place, ready to do whatever was necessary.

Phil went in, slowly, unarmed - or at least that was what it looked like - not to scare off the man who was prepared to betray his boss. But someone had seemed to hear about the little exchange of information because as soon as Coulson was inside, people started running into the building where the meeting was set up from every direction.

Clint yelled something over the comms, but they were shut down and he couldn't reach Coulson anymore. He shot as many men as he could, until his quiver was empty. But still, the people were rushing in and he decided that he was useless on the roof. He knew that his SO had given him direct orders not to leave the roof, but Clint wasn't going to listen to them, not if the man was in danger. So he rushed down and ran towards the entrance of the building. He got out his sword and went inside to face the first Hydra agent in his way.

"Look who it is. The lost boy has found a way inside the enemy organization." The Hydra agent smirked as he watched Clint there with his sword drawn. "So when were you going to let the Red Room know that you were still alive?"

"Red... Room?" Clint was baffled. He had no idea what this man was talking about. On one side, he was glad that the comms were off, that Coulson couldn't hear this man talk to him like he was part of Hydra, but on the other side, he needed some back up.

"Oh, pretending not to remember anything, huh, Ronin? You can't fool me, I've worked with you so many times. Your sword fighting skills are unmatched, as are your skills with a bow."

"I don't remember you." Clint eventually managed to mumble. "But you're in my way to get to my SO, so that doesn't matter anymore, if you know me or not. Because you're going to die right here, right now." Clint barged in and attacked the man, cut down his throat and moved on to the next one.

He cut through every single one to get to Coulson and once he was there, he was glad that he had ignored his orders. His SO was in over his neck and was barely holding a stand against the agents who seemed to just keep coming.

"Hello, sir." Clint called out. "Did you miss me?"

"I was convinced that I had ordered you to stay on the roof, Barton." Coulson glanced at him, but there was a glimmer of gratitude in his eyes.

"Yes, well, I got bored."

"So you thought you'd join the party here then?" Clint could hear the smile in the man's voice.

"Yes, sir. Any objections?" Clint had, while they were talking, killed half a dozen of agents and was now standing back to back with Coulson.

"None, Barton. None."

They continued to fight, side by side, until there were no agents left. Clint was about to make some loud remark about how the agents had failed terribly to take two agents down, but as he said the first few words, he thought he heard Coulson say something. _Thank you for having my back._

Clint frowned and looked at the man. "What did you just say?"

Coulson pretended not to know anything and shook his head. "Nothing important. Come on, let's get back to base."

The archer nodded and walked out of the building with the best damn feeling he had had in a while. "Sir?" He asked, his voice filled with just a hint of insecurity. "Are you going to report how I failed to keep to the orders you gave me?"

"You saved my life, Barton, and I have the feeling that it won't be the last time." Coulson looked at him like he had gone mad.

"Thank you, sir." Clint smiled as they fell in step, making their way back to the evac zone.


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have actually written something in advance now, so you should get regular updates. I had updated the wrong chapter for a second, but I have corrected it by now. I'm so sorry!  
> Thanks for reading, kudo'ing and commenting.

They made it back safely to HQ, where Clint was sent to medical bay for a check over. He didn't protest at all, he was too distracted. He couldn't stop thinking about that man. The man had called him Ronin and he wasn't an expert, but he was pretty sure that that name belonged to a ruthless Hydra soldier. He knew he couldn't tell anyone, not if this man was telling the truth, if he really was a Hydra soldier with memory problems.

What had he said again? He had called him a lost boy, a swords man, an archer. He had also mentioned the Red Room. He needed to know more, he needed to figure out what had happened to him. The more he thought about it, the more he could see the faults in his memories, the holes and the mistakes and the things that just didn't add up.

He was absent minded while the nurse checked his body over to make sure that he didn't have any injuries. Every question they asked was met with a single word reply, most often _yes_ or _no_. The nurse thought that the man was thinking about the mission he just completed, about the men he had killed - after all, it had been his first mission and it really had been his first kill if he trusted his memories. The nurse wanted to send him to a psychiatrist, make sure that he was mentally fine as well, and that was when Clint snapped out of it.

He started to protest, he didn't want to go to a psychiatrist. They would definitely figure out that there was something he was worried about. "I'm fine, nurse Jones, I was just thinking about things, that's all." He smiled a rather convincing smile and pushed himself on his feet again.

The nurse didn't say anything and just let him go to wherever he was going to go. Clint sighed and just walked out of the med bay, straight to his own room. He was surprised to see Coulson waiting there for him. He pushed his worries to the back of his mind - for now - and sat down on his bed, looking up to his SO. "Hello, sir. What're you doin' here?"

"I wanted to thank you." The agent said softly as he stood there in the middle of the room. "For ignoring the orders I gave you and coming to save me. But let me make it absolutely clear that you can't continue to do this. You can't continue to ignore orders, even if it saves lives, understood?"

"But, sir..." Clint almost whined as he looked at Coulson. "I saved your life. I had your back. You saved my life from Ronin and I saved yours from Hydra." He said softly, trying to explain to Coulson why he had acted that way.

"It doesn't matter, Clint. The rules and orders are there for a reason. They are there to make sure that you don't get hurt while you try to save people. I will forgive you this time, since you did, in fact, save me. But next time I won't be so kind. Next time, I'll have to punish you."

Somehow, that got a strong reaction out of Clint. He flinched and moved away from the agent. He didn't want to be punished - he had no idea where this strong fear of punishment came from - and looked down. "Understood, sir." His voice was soft and looked down. "I won't do it again, sir."

Coulson frowned at that reaction, but he had what he wanted, so he decided to leave him alone, let him think this through. He turned around and walked out of Clint's room, leaving the man alone to think everything through.

 

*

 

As soon as Coulson had left, Clint curled up in his bed, trying not to think about what he had said, about anything. He didn't want to. He almost wished that Coulson had never found him, that he was still with the circus, free and careless. But he couldn't be the boy in the circus anymore, not now that he was becoming an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. And while he was trying to remember what kind of tricks he did in the circus, some other memory was sparked.

_Clint was strapped to a metal table, his feet, his arms, he couldn't move a single inch. And his wrist was hurting so badly. He glanced down at it and he saw that his wrist was cut off, it wasn't a clean wound, it looked like someone had sown through his bones to get through it._

_He then realized there was screaming. It was loud and it made his head hurt and he wanted it to stop. It took him a while to realize that it was him who was screaming. When he stopped again, his throat was hurting. But the pain in his throat was nothing compared to the pain that was overwhelming him, the pain that was coming from where his hand used to be. The pain was taking over his brain and he didn't even notice how doctors came rushing towards him and started to work on his wrist. They made sure that the bleeding stopped before they started to attach a prosthetic. That was when Clint blacked out._

_When he woke up again, the first thing he did was reach for his wrist. It was covered in bandages and he couldn't see the wound, not anymore, but he could see the metal hand that came out of there._

_"Ah, you're awake, finally." A voice said._

_Cling looked up and winced as he saw one of Hydra's doctors look at him. He knew this man, he was_ his _doctor, the one who was always there to fix his wounds and to brief him for missions. He knew that he hated the man. He was scared of him. But he wasn't going to let the man know that._

_"How are you feeling?" The doctor pretended to be nice, he sounded worried, but Clint didn't believe a single word he said._

_"I'm feeling..." Clint frowned and glanced back to his hand, moving it slowly. "I don't know. It doesn't hurt." He mumbled softly as he couldn't take his eyes off his new metal hand, that was moving slowly, graciously. "It's beautiful."_

_The doctor looked at him, his investigating look in his eyes as he looked closely at the boy. "Yes it is. It's my best work."_

_"Thank you." He said so softly and he meant it, because if this man hadn't given him this metal hand, then he would've been useless, he would've been thrown out in a ditch somewhere, left to die. His use would've expired and he would be no more than an accident, buried into the files of Hydra._

_"You're welcome, Ronin. "_

Clint blinked a few times as the memory stopped. He didn't know why he couldn't remember more, why it stopped, but he knew one thing. That boy wasn't him. He still had his two hands - his two _human_ hands - so he just couldn't be that boy who was called Ronin and who had lost his hand. He reached out to it, made sure that it was still human, that it was real. When he touched it, it was ice cold and he looked down at it. It looked normal. There was skin and there seemed to be blood flowing through it. But it was also cold like metal that hasn't been touched for a while.

And then there were the scars.

How had he never noticed the scars? He started scratching the scar - he felt like he had to, he had to know if it was real or not - and he felt some sort of edge under his skin. Like there was metal under there. He moved his hand away almost immediately. No. This couldn't be possible.

Clint was starting to freak out as he stared at his hand - his prosthetic . He needed to tell someone this. He needed to ask for help. But then again, if he did that, he'd have to explain how he got the thing, how he had lost his hand and he didn't know. All he knew was that it was during a time he was Ronin.

So he didn't go to anyone. Not to Coulson, not to his doctor or any of the nurses. He kept it all to himself while he went to the archive to go and find out who exactly Ronin was.

 

*

 

He went to the archive every day. He couldn't read very fast yet - he was working on that - but he was motivated, so every day, he took a file out of one of the boxes, one that was either about Hydra or about Ronin and took it back to his room, where he read and read and wrote everything down that he found out.

Coulson visited him everyday under the pretence of making sure his asset was alright, but Clint knew that it was more than that - or was it simply paranoia? Coulson stayed for about ten minutes before he had to go again. Clint knew that the agent was always busy, that he always had some paperwork to do, and yet here he was, every single day, to make sure that he was alright. It felt a lot like being checked up on.

It took him a whole year before he had worked his way through every single file. A whole year of missions, of going undercover for weeks at a time sometimes and at night, when he was in HQ, sneaking into the archive to learn about the Red Room, Ronin and the other famous offspring, the Black Widow.

Even though he had gone through every single file there was, it still wasn't much to go on. Most of the things were rumours, things that S.H.I.E.L.D. suspected the two Hydra soldiers were responsible for. He had also read that the Black Widow had gone rogue a couple of years ago, that she had started to work as a mercenary rather than someone still attached to Hydra.

The more he read about her, the more he realized that he needed to talk to her, that he needed to know what it was like, in the Red Room. He needed to figure out his past or it would drive him crazy. Why had that man said anything? Why had he started all this? Clint sighed deeply and started to scratch his scar again. He caught himself doing that rather often recently. Sometimes he'd hope that the skin the doctors had put on top of his hand would give away so he could be sure that this really was a metal hand, that he wasn't simply imagining everything. But so far, it never had. And he should probably be grateful for that because how was he going to cover up a metal hand at S.H.I.E.L.D., where he was checked after every missions to make sure that he wasn't hurt?

He ran his hands through his hair before he put away his notes - there was nothing he could do with them right now anyway - and laid down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn't look up when there was a knock on the door and a man walked in, because he knew it was Coulson.

"Barton." The man said as he walked in.

"Sir." Clint replied, trying not to show how much he wanted this man to be gone out of his room while he had his identity crisis that had been going on for almost a year now.

"I need you on a mission." Clint was no longer a junior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, he had become a specialist, someone that a senior agent needed to ask on a mission.

"What it is, sir?" Clint asked, really not interested, even though he was supposed to say yes when asked.

"We need you to take someone out." Coulson said. "We need you to take the Black Widow out."

 

 


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is because I screwed up in posting the chapters yesterday, so consider this an apology.  
> Thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commentig!

At first, Clint had wanted to refuse. He didn't want to kill her, didn't want to take her out. But he had no choice, really. Coulson was counting on him and he was in no position to say no. But then he started thinking about it. He could use it to talk to her. He had so many questions after going through those files and there were so few answers. And she would at least have some - or at least he hoped so.

So that was how he found himself on a plane five hours later, his bow packed in a box by his feet. He had left the sword at HQ since he felt like he preferred the bow - he had started to remember flashes of him fighting with his sword from before, while he didn't remember any fights where he had used his bow - not yet at least.

Coulson wasn't there with him - the man was already in Budapest, securing the location - but he knew that he would meet him when he landed there. He got up and walked to the other side of the plane, nervousness buzzing right through him. He couldn't help but pace through the plane - if he had been anywhere else, he would have started to train with his bow - while they flew to their destination.

When the pilot told him that he should go sit down again, that they were about to land, Clint sat down again and strapped himself in. When the plane landed, he almost ran out to find Coulson waiting for him outside. A wide smile appeared on his face as he rushed over to the man.

"Coulson."

"Hello, Barton. I trust you had a great flight." Coulson couldn't help but smile back at the archer who bounced over to him.

"Yes, sir. A wonderful flight." Clint beamed. _Especially now that you're here._

"Good. Now go grab your stuff so I can brief you."

"Yes, sir." Clint sent him a shit eating grin before rushing back to the plane and grabbing both his bags as his bow. He then returned to Coulson who was still waiting for him. The agent grabbed his bow from him and carried it to the car that was waiting for the two of them.

Clint suspected that Coulson would simply throw his bow in the trunk and get in the car, but the agent put the box with it down on the back seat as gently as he could. Clint sent a wide smile to him, glad that the man respected his stuff. _He_ on the other hand did throw his bags in the trunk before he got in the passenger's seat.

 

*

 

The next day, Clint was sent to the top of a roof, where he was supposed to stay until he had a clear shot to take the Black Widow out. He had already decided that he wouldn't do that - he was prepared to be punished for a chance to talk to her - but he hadn't been able to actually tell Coulson that. He respected the agent, the man who had taught him how to read and how to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but this was something he had to do on his own. And he would be a step closer to figuring out where he came from.

"Barton, talk to me." Coulson came in through the comms, more testing the line they were using than actually needing him to report about the situation.

"Everything clear on this end, sir. No Black Widow in sight yet." Clint expected to see the Hydra soldier from the files he'd been reading and he knew that it would be hard to get through to her.

"Report when you see anything."

"Yes, sir."

When, hours later, Clint finally did spot their target, he'd never expected her to look so broken, so helpless - even though she can still take out anyone who would come at her. She looked like he felt, looking for something more, for someone to help her out of this shitty situation.

He barely noticed Coulson's voice coming in through the comms. "Barton, do you have the shot?"

He grabbed his bow and started to move, make his way downstairs again to go and talk to this woman. He needed to help her - he owed it to himself, after all, they were supposed to come from the same background.

"Barton, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Coulson demanded to know. "Barton, talk to me, where are you going?"

Clint whispered a soft "I'm sorry, sir." Before turning off the comms and disappearing from the agent's radar.

Once downstairs, he carefully made his way to where he had last seen the Black Widow, his bow strapped to his back - but easily grabbed if necessary. He held his hands up in defence and to show that he was unarmed as he made his way over to her.

He could pinpoint the exact moment when the Widow spotted him and she froze. He could see her scan his body, his face, as if she knew him and wanted to make sure that it really was him. He took a few more steps in her direction, but that only made her tense up more. She didn't make a move to grab her weapons though, not even when he reached her side.

"You're supposed to be dead." She said eventually, when he was looking around to scan their situation. There were Hydra agents coming in from all sides and he reached out for his bow, already preparing an arrow. "Ronin, they said you were dead."

"Well, I'm not." Clint said, rather emotionless. "Look, Widow, we've got incoming and unless you want to be dead by nightfall, I propose that you get one of those guns out and start shooting anything that moves and that's not wearing a S.H.I.E.L.D. sign."

When he mentioned the other organization, she snapped towards him and finally spotted the eagle on his arm. "You deflected." She accused him. She did grab her guns though and started shooting to cover their left side.

"I did no such thing." Clint huffed as he took care of the right side.

"You're working for _them_ now though." She said, altering her previous statement.

"Yes. But it's a long story. And I actually need your help." He said, letting go an arrow that killed two Hydra agents at the same time.

"Who would need my help?" She sounded so defeated as she glanced over at the side she'd been shooting agents. There was nobody coming anymore.

"Well, I do. I've got questions and I hope you have answers." He replied, glancing over at her. That way, he didn't see the last agent - he had shot him in the shoulder, but he wasn't dead yet - sneaking up on him.

"Keep your eyes on your targets, youотродье"She snapped as she shot a bullet straight to his forehead.He stuck his tongue out at her, a playful motion in the middle of all this destruction and violence."I've got you to have my back,паук."

 

They grinned at each other for a moment and it felt right, like this was how it was supposed to be. But that was when he remembered that he actually had a mission to complete and after a brief apology in Russian, he turned the comms back on to hear a furious Coulson shouting at him.

"Wow, wow, sir, never knew you were such a potty mouth." He smirked while he kept an eye on the Widow - he still didn't know her name.

"Barton, what the fuck are you doing?" Coulson's voice sounded slightly calmer, like he was relieved that his archer was safe - or maybe that was Clint reading too much into it.

"I think she could be an asset, sir." He said, softly, and he could feel two pairs of eyes stare at him, one from far away and one from next to him. He bit his lip, hoping that both parties would accept. He turned toward the Widow and sent her an apologetic look.

"They've been good to me,паук. They have accepted me as one of their own." He quickly explained to her, hoping that was enough to convince her.

 

She was far enough from his comms that Coulson couldn't hear what she said next. "But they don't know the entire you. They won't accept you when they truly know you, Ronin."

"I'm not that man anymore." He said, fiercely. "I'm Clint Barton, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D."

She scanned his face and once she was convinced that this was her best option, she nodded silently. "But I can get out any second I want."

"Great." He sent her a wide grin. "Sir, she's prepared to come to S.H.I.E.L.D. Imagine how much intel she can bring with her. Imagine how much Fury would appreciate it." It was a guess, about Fury, but the Black Widow must be somewhere on their recruitment list, right? "I will clean up all the body parts she leaves laying around, sir, I promise." That earned him a playful slap around the head and a not quite smile from the Widow.

From the other side of the comms, there was a deep sigh. "If this all goes terribly wrong, you're the one with your head on the block."

"Yes, sir." He beamed and held out a thumbs up towards his companion. "Barton out."

 

*

 

When Clint arrived with the Widow at the safe house where Coulson was waiting for him, the first thing the agent did, was slapping him around the head, just like she had done half an hour ago.

"Ow, why does everybody keep hitting me today?" He whined softly, looking up at the man he had learned to respect.

"You should've said something." There was an unspoken _do you have any idea how worried I was_ in the air. "Damn you, Barton, you should've said that you thought she could be an asset before we went out there."

"I didn't know for certain, sir." Clint mumbled, sounding slightly apologetic. "I didn't know that I was going to try and bring her in."

"You were supposed to take her out, agent Barton, you could've said at least something." Coulson knew that he was repeating himself over and over again, but he needed to get his point into that thick skull of Clint's.

Next to him, Clint could feel the Widow tense up as she learned that the archer had saved her life by making a different call than he was ordered. He turned immediately towards her and held up his hands. "Don't take it like that, it wasn't... It wasn't completely selfless." He mumbled softly as she scratched the back of his head.

The Widow shook her head and Coulson narrowed his eyes at him, trying to figure out why exactly he had tried to convince the Black Widow to come and work for S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

*

 

They all made it back safely and Clint had been right, Fury had been delighted with the Black Widow's choice - he had learned that her name was Natasha Romanov - even though he barely showed it. After a few basic tests and a medical evaluation, Clint was free to start sparring with the ex Hydra soldier. The two of them were sent out together on a few missions and they proved to be such a great team that Fury decided to form a new team for the two of them - and Coulson of course.

Strike Team Delta.

They were both part of something bigger now and they got the harder, more violent missions that nobody else would take. And they did it without protesting with Coulson as his handler. And the talking about their past? Well, that was put off for at least a while longer, giving Natasha the chance to settle in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Russian I use - and will use in future chapters - is based on google translate. So don't kill me if I make mistakes, blame google translate. Clint called Natasha 'spider' (yeah I know I've got no inspiration for nicknames) and Natasha called Clint 'brat'.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian are things like 'brat' or 'hawk' (from Natasha) and 'spider' (from Clint). The rest should be English.  
> Thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commenting.  
> P.S. For as long as I am writing - and keep writing ahead of time - you should get a new chapter regularly. Right now I've got 2 more chapters. And I have a pretty good idea about what I want to write, so chapters should keep coming quickly. I hope.

Clint found the first opportunity to talk about the Red Room when they were waiting on a mission. It was evening and the next day they would take out their target. They had gotten in bed together - Coulson was not a part of this particular mission - just to have a companion. Clint had been having more and more nightmares as memories started to return and Natasha had some haunting memories of her own. They had soon discovered that sleeping together kept the nightmares at bay.

So that was when he had decided to try and talk to her, see if he could find out anything new. He hadn't expected much, not at that first try, but to be shot down before he could even open his mouth? That he hadn't expected.

"Shut up, Barton." Romanov grumbled when Clint had moved slightly away from her to actually face her.

"I haven't said anything!" He protested immediately. "I just had a question."

"I know what you're going to ask and I'm not in the mood. " She explained - well, barely - and turned around, so that her back was turned to Clint. "Ask again later,ястреб."

Clint decided not to push her.

 

*

 

_Natasha Romanov had never really liked the only boy in the Red Room. Granted, he had an entirely different skill set than her, being focussed on sword fighting with some archery on the side, but still. She didn't really like him. Granted, she had never spent much time with him - they called him Ronin, that much she knew - but he always came back from successful missions. He never seemed to fail._

_She knew she was the best in her Red Room - she didn't want to be anything else - but Ronin was close concurrency. It was only logical that they put the two of them on a team together._

_In the beginning, they barely spoke - they were there for a mission, nothing more - and simply completed the mission. But one night, on a multi day expedition, Ronin had started to trash around in his bed, keeping her awake. She had decided that she'd get in bed with him - originally to hit him around the head and wake him up - but as soon as she touched him, he seemed to calm down again. The nightmare was gone within a few minutes after she had joined him._

_As soon as she was sure that he was calm again, she moved away from him, going back to her own bed, but Ronin wrapped a tight arm around her, holding her close to him before he whispered. "Please stay."_

_She did stay, she curled up around him and that was when the sleeping together thing started. She told Ronin - and herself - that she was doing this for him, so that he'd sleep well and wouldn't screw up the mission, but if she was honest with herself, she knew that it kept her nightmares at bay as well._

_*_

Clint never seemed to find a good time to talk to Natasha about their time at the Red Room. He needed to know more, he needed to get a background. He needed to know if he was still the man he had been back then or if he was someone else, someone new.

Eventually, on an off day, Natasha had joined Clint in the bed again and she had sighed. "What do you want to know?"

Clint's eyes widened. "You serious?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "You know, I know how smart you are, I've seen you in action. You don't have to act so stupid around me all the time."

Clint shrugged. "Fine. There's a lot I wanna know. It's just not easy to just ask out of the blue, ya know."

Natasha pushed herself up against the back of the bed, Clint was curled up next to her. Her hand was going through his hair, trying to calm him down enough so that he could ask the questions he had.

"Who am I?" He asked, eventually, his voice very small.

"That's easy. You're Clint Barton. " She said it on a tone that made it sound like he was an idiot for not knowing. "You're a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and a futzing good one at that."

"Okay, other question then." He started again. "Who was I?"

"That's a better question. What do you remember?" She was still running her hand through his hair and if he was honest, it did help with getting his story out.

He told her what he remembered, he told her about how his parents had died, how his brother and him had been going through house after house in the Foster system, before finally running away to the circus. There he learned how to shoot, how to fight with a sword and how to steal. It was when he refused to do just that his usefulness had expired and they sent him back to the streets, where he was picked up by someone of the army. After a couple of years in the army, he ran away to another circus, where he once again was the star of the show, just like he had been all those years ago.

"Well, from what you told me back then, you really were in the circus, but the army didn't pick you up, it was Hydra. You were still young enough to be brought here to train with me - with us. You didn't join us in the dancing lessons - it was soon clear enough that you weren't graceful enough for that." She added with a soft chuckle. "But you got sword classes, you were... I don't know exactly what they did to you there, Barton, but... It changed you. Not only did you grow up to be a serious man, but you also changed physically. They programmed you before each mission, gave you a past that fitted with what you were supposed to do."

"Like the army?" Clint asked nervously, like he didn't want to know the answer.

"Like the army." She confirmed. "They must have given you some of the serum they had developed, because you grew from a scrawny teenage boy into a nicely formed man. Your muscles..." She shook her head. "I had never seen anything like it. And then, a few years in, you... You lost your hand."

"So it wasn't a dream." He mumbled, more to himself than to her.

"No I'm afraid it wasn't." She said softly. "They gave you this beautiful metal prosthetic." Her hand left his hair and trailed down his arm, to the scars where his metal hand was supposed to be. "They covered it up before your last mission."

"So... when will this come off? Because I can't... S.H.I.E.L.D. can't know about this. You gotta promise me you'll never tell Coulson, Tasha." He had finally found a place where he felt safe, where he felt like he could be himself - whoever that was right now. He didn't want to lose it.

"I won't ястреб. I won't." She sent him a soft smile. "And as long as you take care of it, it should stay there for as long as you want it."

"Thanks,паук." He send a warm smile at her. "So... How did ya end up running away from there?"

"After that mission failed, after you... after you died, I found that there was nothing keeping me there anymore, so... I ran away. You were the first to find me, in Budapest. Well, along with Hydra, of course." She explained, keeping it as vague as possible.

"You ran away 'cause I was dead?" He sounded surprised as he looked up at her. "Really? Nobody... Nobody has ever done that because of me before." He whispered softly.

"Of course, Hawk. I... We were really close back then and you were the one to... ground me, in some way." She bit her lip. "And I just missed punching you, of course."

"Yeah of course." He grinned slightly as he received a soft punch from her. "So... how close exactly?"

"We weren't..." She shook her head. "We were close friends. I don't think you ever swung that way."

He shook his head. "I didn't."

"Why do you want to know all this?" Natasha asked softly. "Why is it so important to you?"

"I... I want to get past this, past this period of my life, you see. But I can't if I don't have all the data." He mumbled as he looked down.

"Ohотродье. You are still the same in there." She whispered with a fond smile.

 

*

 

The next day, the two of them were supposed to attend an early briefing, but they had slept in and Coulson was making his way to Clint's room soon enough to get them to wake up. He knocked loudly on Clint's door. "Barton, you should've been in a meeting half an hour ago."

Natasha was the one who was out of bed the first and she opened the door. "My apologies, agent Coulson. We'll be there in half an hour. I need to get Clint out of bed."

Coulson's mouth was hanging wide open as he stared at Natasha - and the sleeping form of Clint back in the bed. "I will be waiting." He nodded after a few seconds of silence.

Natasha nodded and turned around to jump on the bed, waking Clint up with a groan. Coulson didn't want to see their morning routine and turned around, leaving the two of them alone.

Clint looked awake - more or less - when he and Natasha arrived in the meeting room twenty nine minutes later. He had a rather bad case of bed hair and he was grinning at Natasha. Coulson pretended not to notice the obvious chemistry between the two of them.

That was why he was surprised when Clint sent a flirty wink at him.

"So, boss." He said. "What's our next mission?"

"You will be going to Florida. You need to infiltrate with Stark Industries. Natasha, you'll be going in as miss Potts' personal assistant, while you, Clint, are joining Stark's security. We need a full check on him to make sure he's ready to join this new team Fury is putting together."

"Will you be joining us, sir?" Clint asked, his voice filled with hope.

"I will visit from time to time. Stark already knows my face, so infiltration is out for me. But you will report to me and I will be there if you need backup." Coulson said, his voice almost emotionless.

"Aww, really? Another mission without you?" Clint sounded just disappointed. "Is there really no way that you can join us?"

Coulson sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "I can't be there to clean up after you every time, Clint. The two of you are big boys now, you can handle this yourself."

"What if I don't wanna do this without you?" He asked softly.

Coulson looked up at him surprised, but before he could say anything in reply, Natasha jumped in.

"Well, if you're just going to flirt, I'll leave the two of you to it. Clint, meet me back in our room in ten."

Clint blushed ever so slightly, but he nodded at the Widow. "I'll be there, Tasha." He mumbled, avoiding Coulson's gaze. The agent, who was not trying to think about what Natasha had just said, just turned around and said that Clint was free to go, that he should probably go pack, since it could be a while before he'd be back there again.

Clint got on his feet and nodded - even though Coulson couldn't see that - before he turned around and walked after Natasha, already yelling _Why did you have to say that?_ after her.

The only reply he got was a chuckle.


	7. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have exams the next three weeks, so the updates will become a bit slower. I'll do my best though.  
> Thanks for reading, kudo'ing and commenting.

Natasha and Clint got along well at Stark Industries. Their time tables didn't always fit together - they rarely did, since Clint mostly worked at night while Natasha worked during day time by Pepper's side - but when they did, they spent the evening together, or they slept together in the bed they had in the house that S.H.I.E.L.D. had arranged for them. Clint still missed Coulson, but it was nice to have someone he knew by his side.

Natasha would complain about the things Stark did that week - or however long it had been since the two of them had met up - but Clint could tell that she liked the job that she had been doing. She had told him about the first time she had met Stark, how she had shown off her fighting skills against Happy. They shared quite a few laughs about that.

Clint never met Stark in person - sure, he saw him from afar, but they had never officially met - but he didn't really care about that. He had heard enough stories - not only from Natasha - to know that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But he talked to the men working for him who had met him personally, he talked about what Stark was like as a boss and while most of the people just thought that it was him bracing himself for the inevitable meeting, but it was more. Coulson expected him to file a report about this man and he had every intent to go in as much detail as he possibly could. If that meant talking to his colleagues, then that was what he was doing.

When the meeting finally happened, it wasn't how Clint had expected it to go, even with all the bracing he had been doing.

 

*

 

Stark didn't blink an eye as Clint came into the room to report to Happy about the security break Stark Industries had had a week ago. He briefly greeted the man, his bow in his hand before turning his full attention to the man's personal bodyguard. He wasn't surprised when Stark spoke up.

"When did we start to hire Legolas?" The man smirked as he looked at Clint and his bow.

"A week ago. After that thing." Clint shrugged. _After S.H.I.E.L.D. decided they needed to check you out_. "Good to know you're in control of everyone you hire."

"Hey, I _am_ in control!" Stark protested.

"Sure, boss, sure." Clint smirked at the engineer. He ran his eyes over the man's body, trying to figure out if he was okay, how he was looking exactly. "Anything you need me to do, sir?"

Stark blinked in surprise, like he was surprised about that the question was directed to him and not to Happy or anyone else. "No, unless Happy needs you for anything?"

Happy shook his head. "No, we're fine. If you don't need anything, sir, then we'll leave you to it."

Stark vaguely waved them away, trying to signal that they weren't needed right then. At that moment, Pepper and Natasha walked in. Clint looked up at the red head and shot a smile at her. Pepper smiled back at him, thinking the smile was directed to her.

"Ah, yes, Legolas, this is Pepper Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries. The one who actually hired you." Stark said, sounding more than a bit smitten.

"You must be Barney Barton ." Pepper said, her voice polite but kind as she remembered who he was. "Nice to see you've found your way around here."

"Thank you, ma'am." Clint said, returning the polite smile, his eyes trailing back to Natasha.

"Mr. Barton, I'd like you to meet Natalie Rushman." Pepper turned to the red head and waved her towards Clint.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Legolas." Natasha tried to hide the smirk that was forming on her lips and Clint was doing his best to do the same.

"Same, miss _Natalie_." He phrased it like it was a question without really making it one. "Same."

Clint could see that he was supposed to go right then, so he nodded briefly towards Stark, Pepper and - last but not least - Natasha, before he left the room to go back to the job he was supposed to do.

 

*

 

Clint had arranged to take a week off when Stark was supposed to go to Monaco, but he knew that Natasha could handle it perfectly well. He was glad to take a week off, he was glad that he could go back to Coulson, back to the agent who had come home from another mission that had lasted a few days. Clint didn't want to admit that he missed the agent, but... Well, yeah he did. He did miss him. And he felt stupid about that.

He arrived at HQ, dressed in his usual S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform and walked straight to Coulson's office, smiling widely. He had missed watching that man sitting hunched over his desk, working on some paperwork. He had missed that smile Coulson gave him when he saw him standing in the doorway. He missed about everything about that man.

_Damn, he had it bad_.

"Hello, sir." He said, trying to let this fondness leak through his voice. "Have ya missed me?"

Coulson pushed aside his paperwork and turned towards his archer. "Would it surprise you if I told you I did?" His voice was soft, but that didn't make it less audible.

Clint didn't quite know what to do with that. _Did Coulson just admit to missing him?_ Coulson of all people? The man who had a reputation within S.H.I.E.L.D. to be an ice cold agent, who never seemed to get attached to anyone in any kind of way? For once, he didn't have a comeback.

"What is it, Barton? Cat got your tongue?" Coulson smirked at Clint. "Wait, did you miss _me_?" The man sounded surprised, as if it was the first time somebody had actually _missed_ him.

"Well, yeah, duh." Clint mumbled, looking down. "Of course I missed you." He nervously scratched the back of his head as he looked anywhere but at Coulson himself.

"Clint..." Coulson said before he got up and walked over to him, placing his hand on the archer's arm. "I missed you too."

Clint blinked slowly, staring at the agent. "I.... I should probably go... uh... go write a report. About Stark. I mean, a temporary one." He turned on his heels and made his way out of the man's office.

Clint was convinced that he could hear Coulson mutter. "You never write reports."

"I know."

 

*

 

Clint spent the next week trying to avoid Coulson. It scared him, this feeling, this fondness he had developed towards the other man. He barely knew who he was - he did know that he was dangerous and that Coulson couldn't possibly know about his past - but what he did know was not pointing in his favour. He had been getting more and more flashes from his life before S.H.I.E.L.D. and none of them were good. He had killed more than a dozen agents, colleagues of Coulson, possibly even friends.

He spent a lot of time in the shooting range, using his bow again on a decent target and without the softened arrow heads that Happy had made him use. It felt good to be in his element again.

He hadn't suspected that Coulson would track him down - it wasn't that hard to do, honestly - but when the agent was there, Clint was kind of glad that he was there. Alright, yeah, it was his fault that he'd been avoiding him, but that didn't stop the relief running through him.

"Barton, talk to me." Coulson said when he knew that Clint had noticed him. "Why are you avoiding me?"

"Avoiding you?" Clint turned towards him, his bow still in his hands. "I haven't been avoiding you, boss."

"Barton." The man's disappointment was clearly audible in that one single word.

"I'm really not avoiding you, Coulson, you've got to trust me." Clint put his bow down and leaned against the wall, looking at the agent - but not quite looking at him.

"Clint." Their eyes met when the agent used his first name. "Please tell me the truth."

Clint let out a defeated breath. "Coulson, it's not that simple. I... I can't just tell you whatever is on my heart, ya know. It's more complicated than that." He mumbled softly as he looked down. "Plus, I don't know how..." _How you'll react._

It was as if Coulson could hear the end of the sentence. "You won't know till you try, Clint. Please try me out. You'd be surprised."

It took Clint a while to find the right words. "Phil. I... There's something I need to tell you." He whispered softly. "And it's important. Really important."

Coulson didn't say anything and just looked at him with that patient look in his eyes that he got when Clint was having trouble getting out of his words.

"Okay, so... This might sound a bit... weird, or inappropriate, but... I like you a lot, Phil. I really do. Ever since the moment we met, in that hospital, I knew you were awesome. When you were teaching me how to read, I know that... That I really liked you, as more than a friend. You were the first one to ever give me that sort of attention and I still... I can't believe how lucky I've been."

"Clint." The disapproving tone was gone from Coulson's voice. "I know. I... I like you too, Clint, but we need to take it slow, date first. We'll need to fill in all sorts of paperwork. We'll have to-" He kept rambling on, until Clint stopped him by pressing a very soft kiss to the man's lips. Coulson stopped talking immediately.

"Forget the paperwork for a moment, Phil. Let's just... enjoy the ride. We can date, we can do whatever you want, but let's enjoy it, alright? We'll be fine." He smiled softly at the agent.

Before he could say anything else, Coulson pulled him in his arms and kissed him again, deeper, with more passion than the kiss Clint had used to shut him up.

 

*

 

As soon as Natasha returned from her mission at Stark's, she realized that something had changed between the two men. Clint seemed to be hovering around Coulson even more than usual and there was a chemistry that wasn't there before - well, it had been there, but the two of them were actually acting on it rather than trying to ignore it. Clint was surprised that she was back already - he hadn't suspected that she'd be back already - but he was glad, very glad indeed.

"So, why're you back already? Stark stopped dying?" He asked, pulling her in a hug.

"Where have you been the last week,ястреб? Haven't you heard about what happened in Monaco? And Fury stepping in? And then the thing at Stark Expo?" Natasha looked at him like he was an idiot - which he was, sometimes. Well, he could be.

"That might be my fault." Coulson stepped closer to Clint. "I have kept him rather busy."

Clint blushed brightly - it was a sight that Natasha tried to savour - when the agent stepped in his personal space and grabbed his hand.

"So you two idiots finally got your heads out of your asses and talked about stuff?" She laughed at them.

Now Coulson joined Clint in turning red before he looked down. "Well, I suppose so, yes?"

"I'm happy for you two идиоты." She smiled and pressed a soft kiss to Clint's cheek.

"Thanks?" Clint mumbled as he watched Natasha leave the room.

"Should I be jealous?"Coulson whispered in Clint's ear.

"No, sir, not at all."

Natasha sighed as she couldn't help but doubt her choice in not telling Coulson about Clint's past.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not too happy with how this chapter turned out, but its the best I can do for this chapter. I'm halfway writing the next chapter, but after that, things will go more slowly once again. My apologies for that.  
> Thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commenting.

Clint was a bit disappointed that he hadn't been there for the end of the mission at Stark, but Coulson - no it was Phil now - made sure that his free time was well spent. They had started slow, like the agent had said. Their first date had been in a pizza place, just the two of them sitting at a bar, talking, laughing and afterwards, Clint and Phil returned Phil's flat where they laughed some more and enjoyed watching Dog Cops.

When Clint left - they had decided that they should wait with doing something more - Phil was biting his lip and moving closer slowly, as if he was deciding whether or not to kiss Clint. Eventually, Clint grew tired of waiting for the agent to make up his mind and he pulled him in his arms, pressing a soft and exploring kiss to his lips.

The kiss was awkward and the two men pulled back quite soon but after exchanging one look, they pressed their lips together again and had a huge make-out session in the doorway.

Their second date didn't happen until almost two weeks later - missions were getting in the way and they never seemed to have the evening off - but that didn't mean they didn't see each other during the time in between the different dates. Clint always found an occasion to sit down on the sofa in Coulson's office. The junior agents didn't even notice him after a couple of days of him sitting there.

It was on the day before they had planned their second date that a rumour started to go around. Clint suspected that Natasha was behind it, but there was nothing they could do about it. Phil was slightly annoyed by the rumour, but Clint made him all forget it with a kiss.

Their second date was actually outside of New York - they had a mission in the Pegasus Facility, where scientists were working on the Tessaract. Clint was there to keep an eye on things, making sure that everything went smoothly and Phil was there to supervise the entire thing. He'd be the one to contact Fury if something went wrong.

It wasn't as if there were a lot of opportunity to go on a date, but Phil had a rented apartment with a television, so the two of them retreated there - Clint made something simple for dinner, even though he had no idea where he had learned to cook - before the two of them snuggled up on the sofa, sharing lazy kisses as they watched Dog Cops finale.

They had been dating for three weeks when the Tessaract started to act up. Clint's schedule was suddenly a lot more intense and there was no more time for dates - or even lazy hanging out. The two of them saw glances of each other, but never anything more. When there was an energy surge from the Tessaract, Coulson decided that Fury needed to hear about this.

Within four hours, the Director was on base and Clint was sitting in the highest corner of the room, looking at everyone come and go. When Fury walked in the room where he was, everything seemed to go wrong - and go wrong fast. First he was talking to the Director, telling him that doors open from both ways, then the portal actually opened, revealing a man - the bother of Thor, Loki. A fight followed, because that's what agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. do when someone attacked them without a good reason.

Clint was there, fighting along them and when almost everybody was down, he suddenly faced the god. He grabbed his gun, but before he could even shove it into the man's face, he got a spear pushed against his chest, leaving him pushed into the passenger's seat of his own life, surrounded by blue.

 

*

 

Coulson was too busy trying to get everyone out of the base to get the message that Clint had turned. It wasn't until he had reached Head Quarters again that he heard about what had happened, back at the Pegasus base.

_Fuck, he'd have to tell Natasha_.

But he needed to help Fury get the other Avengers - a new initiative that was the pet project of the Director - together. Clint was supposed to be one of them, along with Natasha, but it seemed that plans had changed. When he couldn't put it off anymore, he grabbed his phone and called the Russian the Black Widow was interrogating.

He didn't really remember much of that conversation. He knew that he made some threats and that once he actually had Natasha on the line, he had to argue for a while before she actually did what he asked. One thing he did remember was telling her that "Barton's been compromised" and how his voice almost broke when he said it. Waiting for Widow to end her business was the perfect opportunity to get his emotions back in check, so he could tell her deadpan to go get the Big Guy, while he got Stark.

Stark was the perfect opportunity to get his mind off Clint and what the hell had happened to have his archer turn on S.H.I.E.L.D. - he had a few theories, but none of them actually made any sense. The first thing he thought that could have happened was that Clint had actually always been working for Hydra - or Loki, he currently assumed they were the same - but he was pretty sure that he would've seen signs of that.

Stark only needed some convincing from Ms. Potts before he agreed to come in the next day. Mission successful. He made his way back to HQ where he was met by Fury, who finally sat down with him and explained what had happened with Clint - the Director was one of the few people who actually knew that Clint and Coulson actually were a couple.

Once Fury was done explaining what he thought had happened, Coulson didn't know whether or not to feel relieved that Clint had not consciously turned against him - and to a certain extend S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Go and take a nap, cheese." Fury said when he realized that Coulson wasn't taking it too well. "When something happens, we'll come and wake you up."

Coulson nodded and got on his feet, making his way back to his room, almost in a daze. It was now fully starting to hit him that he might never get Clint back. He collapsed on his bed, not even caring that he was still wearing his suit. Closing his eyes, he drifted off into an uncomfortable slumber, filled with Clint and a _lot_ of blue eyes.

 

*

 

That was all he could think about while he was watching how his body was cleaning his bow. Loki was checking up on Selvig, seeing if the scientist is actually getting somewhere. Clint looked up and suddenly, Loki was standing next to him, asking if he could get the last thing needed for his next target.

"I need a distraction." He nodded. "And an eyeball."

*

 

Coulson was woken up by one of the junior agents, who actually looked terrified. He pushed himself up again, looked at the agent - who couldn't get out of the room soon enough - and then straightened his suit. A glance at the clock told him that he'd been asleep a good five hours. He groaned softly and made his way back to the deck, where he was greeted by Natasha, Doctor Banner and Captain America, Steve Rogers - he did his desperate best not to stare at the man, but he was pretty sure that he completely failed.

Natasha told him he was needed on the bridge again, where he immediately took off to again. There, he was ordered around more in an attempt to actually resolve this situation - and most importantly, get Clint back. He worked way too long, but eventually, Hill let him go to check up on the heroes in a other part of the plane. Once he was alone again, Natasha contacted him over the comms.

"Widow, what's going on?" He asked, trying to keep his voice emotionless.

"I need to talk to you." Phil sighed, this could never be anything good.

"What's it about?" He had the feeling that he could predict what it was going to be about.

"It's about Clint."

Of course. Of course it was about his boyfriend - because that was what they were, right? "What else can you tell me that I don't already know?"

"You would be surprised, sir." Natasha said, her voice cold. "You have actually _no idea_."

 

*

 

Then there was a name. Agent Coulson. Phil.

He found himself on top of a roof, taking out every single security guard of the German building. He needed the iridium and that meant he needed to get inside.

He got the eyeball, he got the iridium and got the hell out of there.

 

*

 

When Coulson arrived in his office, Natasha was already there, sitting on his couch, where Clint was normally sitting - _it didn't do anything to his heart, not at all_ \- and he walked to his desk. As he sat down, he leaned forwards on his hands. He took a deep breath and said: "Alright, what do you have to tell me?"

"Clint told me how you two met." She started. "The circus, the hospital, you teaching him how to read. He was so glad that you were the one who found him, Coulson, there was nothing he appreciated more."

Phil tensed and Natasha threw him a sympathetic look. "Get to your point, Widow."

"So you know everything since the two of you met, but has he actually talked to you about his past?"

Phil frowned slightly as he tried to think about what he knew about Clint's past. He knew about the circus about his brother and how he went to the army after that, but he had always thought it a bit weird that the army had accepted him at this young age. "He told me about the circus and the army." He said softly. "Don't tell me I'm wrong."

"You also know that I was trained in the Red Room?" Phil nodded slowly, having a terrible feeling in his gut. "There was one boy there as well and we called him Ronin."

"I know about Ronin, I have been looking for him almost my entire career." He huffed slightly. "I was actually pretty sure that I was going to catch him when... when I met Clint. Natasha, are you telling me...? Is he Ronin?"

 

*

 

After the name, a feeling followed. He was pretty sure that he loved this guy, that they were a thing.

Loki had been captured by the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. so he had given Clint the order to come and get him out again. He was going to do his best to get out himself, obviously, but he could use an distraction. Clint grabbed his bow, got all the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Loki had and got them all to the Helicarrier.

He didn't know anything about the conversation between Phil and Natasha, all he knew was his bow and he prepared for his first shot took a d e e p b r e a t h a n d "Wham!" He hit the side of the ship. He smirked before he pressed the button that would make the arrow explode.

_That was some kind of a distraction._


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was a bit slow on the update. I wrote a couple of different things and I'll admit that it might take a while before I continue this (at least a week or three). I am also writing a longer one shot and then there's the Merthur story that I'd like to continue. I'm doing way too much, but I hope you enjoy this chapter! More's to come.  
> Thanks for reading, kudo'ing and commenting!

Clint wanted to get back to Phil, to his boyfriend, but the blue wasn't letting him. He couldn't push past the blue and he was pretty sure that Phil would be disappointed that he made it so easy, so easy for the blue to take over.

He was fighting. He vaguely recognized the people he was killing and defeating as agents, colleagues of his. He could name most of the faces of the people who fell and suddenly he wondered if Loki would want to know. He needed to ask when he was free again.

But for now, all there was, was shooting and getting Loki out of here.

 

*

 

_Is he Ronin?_ Of course that was the moment that the entire Helicarrier blew up. Phil wanted to know - he needed to know - and Natasha seemed to know more about Clint that he did - and he was his boyfriend, for god's sake. Natasha's silence said enough that Phil already knew the answer to his question.

"I need to go, we both do." Phil said eventually, softly. "But once this is over, we are going to have a long chat about this." He took a deep breath, tried to push Clint from his mind and made his way out of the room so that he could take care of the situation. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see Natasha move to do the same.

He made his way to the bridge, where Fury was trying to guide the Avengers to save the Helicarrier. As soon as the Director spotted Phil, a grim smile appeared on his face.

"What's happening?" The agent shouted. "Who's attacking us?"

The smile disappeared and Fury was deliberately not looking at Phil.

"It's Clint, isn't it?" Phil asked. He wanted to face him, to try and get him back, but he already knew that Fury would want him somewhere else.

A tight nod confirmed his suspicion. "I want you to take this gun -" he dropped a big gun in Phil's hands and he had no idea what it was going to do. "-and go take Loki down."

"There's no chance that I can try and take Clint down?"Phil asked, trying to take a closer look at the gun he was holding.

"Phil. You're one of the best agents we have. Normally, I would send one of the Avengers after him, but Banner's attacking our own, Thor has disappeared, last time I checked, Natasha was trying to calm down Banner, but I have no idea what she's doing now and Stark and Rogers are trying to keep us in the air." The Director didn't even need to add Clint to the list. "So I need my best agent there and that's you, Phil. Someone else will take care of your archer."

Phil tried to hide his disappointment as he nodded and made his way to where Loki was, ready to make him pay for taking his boyfriend from him.

 

*

 

There was a flash of colour. Red. It belonged to a girl and he knew her. Yes. Nat. The red head in front of him seemed to push the blue away, which he was very grateful for.

He was still fighting, but this time, his opponent was skilled and challenging. He did his absolute best to defeat the red head in front of him - he needed to please Loki, he needed to get to him and get him out. He got hit on the back of the head and for a moment, the blue disappeared completely.

Clint realized that he was on the ground and looking up at Natasha. "Nat..." He tried to mutter before she once again hit him and the world became dark.

 

*

 

When Coulson found Loki in the Hulk proofed room, things went fast. He remembered vaguely talking about not knowing what his weapon did and he was about to shoot the god when he was stabbed from behind. He gasped and looked down, finding the top of the spear coming out of his chest.

Phil couldn't help but regret that he didn't have the chance to tell Clint what he had found out, that he wanted to talk about it, but a watery cough escaped him and he looked up at the Asgardian. He took another breath before he attempted to talk to the god. "You're gonna lose." He wheezed.

"Am I?" The god asked and raised his eyebrow.

"It's in your nature." Phil said, convinced of this. He knew that the others would eventually get back together and that they would avenge him - well, he hoped so at least. They would get Clint back, he knew that they would find a way to free the archer from Loki's grip on his mind.

"Your heroes are scattered, your floating fortress falls from the sky... where is my disadvantage?" Loki smirked and added. "I had a little chat with your archer. He has a lot of repressed memories. If you weren't about to die, I would tell you his secrets."

"You're assuming I don't already know them." Phil mumbled. "I know that he is Ronin, I know that he used to work for Hydra." He took another breath. "And that doesn't matter, because... I love him anyway."

"You can't possibly love an enemy of the organization you have devoted your life to, the organization you're now going to die for."

Phil, moving slowly, tried to get his hands on the trigger of the gun and aim it at Loki's chest. The god didn't seem to notice what was happening as he continued talking.

"What? Nothing to say...?"

Phil pulled the trigger and shot him in the chest, sure that he had absolutely no other option than at least try to take him out, like Fury had asked him to. _I'm so sorry, Clint, seems like we won't be going on after all..._ Phil slowly closed his eyes and let the world go on around him, not paying attention to anything anymore. He could only hope that they found him in time.

 

*

 

When Clint became aware of the world again, he was strapped to a table with Natasha sitting next to him. With a soft groan, he got her attention. He pulled his straps, trying to get out. There was still some blue in the corner of his eyes, but blinking made it disappear, luckily. When it was all gone, he stopped fighting and looked up at the red head next to him.

"Back with us, Clint?" She said as she placed her hand on his arm.

"Nat..." He once again blinked a few times as he looked straight into her eyes. "Do you know what it's like to be unmade? To have all you are pulled out of there and something else stuffed in there?" He almost whispered as she was undoing his straps.

"You know that I do." She said, matter-of-factly. She wasn't going any deeper into it, it was merely a statement. "And you do too, if only you would remember."

"'Tasha..." He sighed. He pushed himself up on the bed, so that she could sit down next to him. She did and their shoulders touched. He leaned in the touch that was meant to be comforting. "I'm trying, okay? I'm trying to remember."

"Phil knows." She said, out of the blue. "He knows that you were Ronin." She didn't move away from the archer, but she didn't look at him either. "I thought that when you had turned to Loki, that you remembered again and had turned once again to Hydra's side. So I told him. More or less. We were interrupted by the time we actually got to the subject."

Clint bit his lip and looked up, almost with puppy eyes. "He's not going to want to talk to me anymore, is he?" The mere idea broke him, he didn't want to lose Phil, he had grown to love him and if the agent wouldn't talk to him anymore, he didn't know if he was going to stay with S.H.I.E.L.D. "He's going to hate me."

"Clint..." She sighed. She probably wanted to explain to him that the agent wouldn't do that, that they would probably talk it out, but he didn't give her a chance.

"I have tried to change. I have genuinely tried to push Ronin down and just... be Clint. But it's all been for nothing, because now he knows and now he'll never talk to me again." He ran one hand through his hair. "Just let me... Let me pack my bags."

Natasha tried to stop him, but at that moment, Steve walked into the room where Clint and Nat were sitting on the bed, next to each other. The captain didn't know about Phil, so he smiled rather fondly at the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sitting so close to each other. "Romanov, are you ready to go out? New York is under attack." He then looked over at Clint specifically. "Have a suit?"

"Yes." Clint was glad with the distraction that Steve was offering.

"Then suit up."

 

*

 

The battle went by in a haze. He remembered shooting, he remembered jumping off a building in an attempt not to get killed. He had scrapes on his arms and his back hurt, so he must have fell on his quiver sometime during the battle, maybe in a room filled with glass? It didn't matter, it was over now and currently, he was enjoying shawarma with his new-found friends.

It was then, when he was feeling okay, when he was thinking that he would probably be able to get over what Loki did that Natasha took his hand and swallowed tightly. "Clint, we need to talk." Her voice was soft as she pulled him on his feet and out of the room. The rest of the Avengers stayed in the room, giving them their space.

"Natasha, what's wrong?" Clint was getting scared by the way she looked at him, the way she was so careful around him.

"Clint, Phil, he... He got hurt pretty badly." Natasha placed her hand on his shoulder. "He flat lined for... about three minutes? I don't know the exact details, but what I do know is that Fury was there and he did something and now Phil's in the hospital. He's alive, but he hasn't woken up yet. I just thought that you should hear it from me rather than from some random S.H.I.E.L.D. agent."

Clint tensed as soon as Natasha started explaining. It couldn't be true. Phil couldn't be in the hospital. "It's my fault isn't it?" He mumbled softly as he tried to get himself together, tried not to lose it.

"Clint, no, don't ever think that! It's not your fault, Phil was doing his job, he was trying to stop Loki so he could get you back. You have no idea how worried he was." She looked so gently, she really did believe that he had nothing to do with Phil's death.

"Can I see him? I need to... I need to know that he is going to be okay." He had no idea why he couldn't talk anymore, his voice wasn't working anymore.

"Of course. I'll take you to him right now, alright?" She wrapped her arm around his shoulder as she guided him out of the shawarma place towards a car. Clint just let her and he definitely didn't see the rest of the Avengers standing behind the window, staring at the two of them - well, except Thor, he was still eating.

The drive to the hospital was surreal. He couldn't quite believe what was happening, that Phil was actually hurt. Of course he had been hurt before, just like Clint had been, but they had always been awake and talking while they were in medical. They had never been so bad that one of them was in a coma or whatever was happening to the agent.

Natasha brought him to Phil's room and stopped him right before he was about to walk inside. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Clint nodded and tried to glance around her, tried to catch a glance of Phil inside. "Can I just see him already?" He asked, swallowing tightly. "I need to know if he's okay."

"He's going to be because he's got you." Natasha stepped aside and smiled reassuringly.

Clint walked inside, straight to Phil's bedside. He took Phil's hand in his and squeezed it gently. Natasha was right, Phil was going to be alright. He just knew that. If he was just patient, then everything would be alright.


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an unplanned chapter that I thought was really needed for the story. So that means another extra chapter (and a longer story). Anyway, the next update might come sooner than one might think (I'm in a writing mood). Anyway.  
> Thanks for reading, kudo'ing and commenting!

It took weeks - even with the alien stuff in his blood - for Phil to recover. Clint was almost every single day sitting next to his bedside, keeping him company. Phil was glad that the archer was there, that he had company. He knew that Clint was still in therapy for what Loki had made him do - those were the only times when Clint would leave the agent alone - but he appreciated the man's presence, the fact that he was there to take care of him while he couldn't.

Phil also knew that Clint blamed himself for the fact that the agent was in the hospital at all, that he had gotten hurt because of him. He could see it in the archer's eyes every time he looked at him - and to be honest, it hurt. It wasn't Clint's fault that he was hurt, it was Loki's. The Asgardian had been the one who had killed him, who had controlled Clint, who had made him destroy the Helicarrier. He blamed the god, not the archer.

Phil had a lot of time to think, even when Clint was there next to him. The man had never been good with putting his emotions into words, with talking without actually using sarcastic comments or snide remarks. His thoughts were generally fixed on Clint - or were related to the archer anyway - as he drifted in and out of sleep.

Six weeks after the incident, after the crippling accident, Clint had walked into Phil's room after a therapy session, looking more down than usual. Phil scanned his archer, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong without even asking. Turned out he didn't have to.

"I told my therapist." Clint said softly, as soon as he sat down. "I told my therapist how it felt to be controlled."

Phil reached out and took one of his boyfriend's hands in his. "You can tell me too, if you need to. You know that I'll listen, right?"

Clint nodded slowly and squeezed the man's hand. "I know." He took a deep breath and Phil knew enough of how Clint worked to know that he was gathering his courage to tell the agent what he had told his therapist. Phil knew that it could take a while - after all it had taken him six weeks to open up to someone who had worked with him almost every day for at least a few hours - but he was patient. He was prepared to give Clint the time he needed.

"I... The entire world was blue, Phil." He mumbled softly. "I could see what happened around me, I could see what I was doing, but it was like I was in the passenger's seat of my own body. And Loki was in control."

Phil wished that he could pull the man in a tight hug - contact with his chest wasn't really a great idea right now, even after six weeks - but all he could do was squeezed the man's hand a little tighter.

"Sometimes I could feel what happened elsewhere." He fell silent for a while, looking for words. "Loki knew how I felt - how I feel about you. He knew that from the moment he saw me. And when he... When he killed you, he made me feel. I didn't know it was you, not until Nat told me, but I knew someone close to me was hurt and hurt badly." He wiped away the single tear that rolled down his cheek. "Everybody keeps saying that this wasn't my fault, that I didn't almost kill you and that I didn't kill those other agents on the Helicarrier. But it feels like it is, you know. At HQ, when I'm there for my therapy sessions, people look at me like I'm someone who should be locked up, who should be kept at some S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and experimented on to make sure what kind of effects Loki had on me."

"I would stop whoever even dares to lay a finger on you." Phil interrupted the archer. "Even from here, anyone who touched you, I'll degrade him until they're nothing more than a Level 1 Agent."

Clint laughed, but it was nothing more than a broken sound, it was nowhere close to the laugh that he had laughed before all this, before the Avengers. "That's exactly what Fury told me, that first therapy session. He also made it quite clear that if any word got out of what I said, he'd make sure that she'd never get hired ever again." He leaned a bit closer to the agent. "At least not without my permission that is. You're safe, sir."

"That's good to know." Phil hummed softly, pressing a soft kiss to Clint's cheek - he could feel the strain on his wound, just by moving that way - and Clint immediately moved closer to the man, hovering over him, pressing his own lips onto the man's.

"I think I love you, Phil." He said. "That's one thing that I'm quite sure about. The rest, who I am, what I am to S.H.I.E.L.D., I don't know anything anymore. Except that you - and to a certain extend Natasha as well - are the most important person in my life."

"Clint..." Phil wanted to return the sentiment, wanted to tell Clint that he was his first and last thought every day.

"Please, just... even if you don't feel the same way, please let me still feel like I have actually someone to love for."

"Clint, please let me finish." He said, softly. "I love you too. And I would go to the end of the world for you, to get you back. No matter what happens, I will always be there for you, Clint. No matter what happened in your past, because that's exactly what it is, your past. And I want you to know that if you ever want to talk about what I remember, that I'll be there to listen, no matter what."

Something flashed inside Clint's eyes, something Phil couldn't identify. And that might have scared him. but it wasn't enough to get him to give up on him. He would never give up, not on his archer, not ever. It just wasn't in his dictionary.

"Thank you, sir." He said, softly. "I will probably take you up on that. I mean, sometime in the future."

Phil nodded and smiled at the archer. "Take all the time you need, Clint. Anything and everything you need from me, you can have it. I'll always be there for you."

Clint shooed the man over to the side of the bed as he joined him on the bed. He carefully and gently snuggled into his side and closed his eyes. Phil didn't say anything as he watched the man slowly fall asleep in his arms.

 

*

 

Once Clint was cleared for the field again - Tony had convinced him to come and live at the Avenger Tower, something that Coulson had encouraged - he visited the agent once more. He knew that he'd probably not be able to visit him for the foreseeable future, since he would probably have trouble finding the time now that he could go on missions again.

He was hovering in the doorway while one of the nurses checked him over - maybe for the last time. Once Phil spotted Clint, the archer was rewarded with a wide grin - something that resembled his own shit eating grin from back in the days - and he walked over, smiling a smile that was as genuine as he could manage.

"We need to talk, Phil." The archer said, softly, as the nurse left the room. "I'm cleared for the field again and I... I need to get something off my chest first, before I join my fr- the Avengers again. "

Phil pushed himself up and patted the empty space next to him on the bed. "Come and sit down, then we'll have a talk."

The archer listened and sat down next to the agent. "How are you, sir? Cleared to get out of here yet?" He tilted his head slightly, curious what the nurse had said. "I bet you're getting tired of staying here in this room."

"I am, in fact. Still stuck to paper work, but at least I will be able to live in my own place again, instead of here in the hospital with the horrible food and the horribly sheets."

Clint laughed softly - the laugh was much more free than a couple of weeks ago, after he had told him about the therapy session. "Well, paper work has always been one of your favourite activities. I will try to visit you as often as I can, but it might be a bit of trouble since I get to go on missions now."

Phil smiled freely and reached out for Clint's hand. "I know you've been looking forward to that as well. But you were here to talk about something?"

"Ah, yes, I... I wanted to take you up on that offer you made me. I mean about my past and all that?" Clint didn't look at Coulson, he just swallowed tightly as he once again braced himself to start talking. "You know that... That I used to be Ronin." He said, but his tone made it quite clear how he thought about that part of his past. "And there was some Hydra agent, back in Budapest, who said that I was... well, you know. And then Natasha remembered me and we started to talk. I read all the files you had on me, on Ronin, on Hydra. I was trying to remember things, but I... I wished that I hadn't."

"What did you remember?" Phil moved his hand to Clint's shoulder.

"Flashes of things. Mostly combat, things like that, but there's also one memory where I'm wounded, where they're fixing me. It was... I had returned from a mission where they had cut my hand off. So you know those scars on my wrist, right? I always assumed that they were from an accident in the circus or something, but they weren't. They are from the time my hand was cut off and when they gave me a metal hand."

"If you really do have a metal hand, then how do we not know about that?" Phil asked, frowning softly. He held his hands out for Clint's own hand, but he didn't want to push the archer.

Clint gave him his hand and while Coulson was looking over it, tracing his hand over the hand - the ice cold hand - while he tried to figure out how it worked. "I almost took off the skin once, but then I panicked." He showed the corner of the skin that he had pulled off back then. "Want to take it all off? I mean, if we're going to be honest and all."

"That's a good idea." Phil nodded as he tugged at the skin, revealing a metal hand not unlike Barnes' arm. The agent gasped when he was it, when he saw the metal beauty. "This is beautiful, Clint." He smiled softly. "So beautiful."

"It isn't, Phil. It's... it's something I don't want. It's my daily reminder of who I was. I would prefer it to be covered again." He said, softly. "If you can, at least."

"I'll ask Tony, see what he can do." He smiled warmly. "I promise that we'll find a solution for this. But for now, remember that you're not that man anymore, that that is in your past and that it stays there."

"Thank you, Phil." He released a breath he didn't even realised he was holding. "I'm really glad that you're here." The tension leaked out of his body as he relaxed against Coulson's side. He was glad to be there, to be next to the man he loved.

"So am I, Clint. So am I." He hummed as he wrapped his arms around the archer. "I couldn't be any gladder."

The man leaned closer, leaning over to kiss to older man once more, but at that moment, his phone went off. With a dramatic sigh, he pulled back and picked up.

"Hawkeye speaking." He said, pushing all the emotions from his voice.

"We need you, Clint." It was Steve on the other side of the line. "Something has come up and we could use all the help we can get."

"I'll be there as soon as I can." He glanced at Coulson and sent him an unspoken apology. "I'm on my way right now."

Clint turned to Phil, pulled him in for a brief, almost desperate kiss and then got up again, walking out of the hospital room without as much as a single word of explanation. It was time for the mission.


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I promised, a quick update. But the next one might take a while since I have absolutely no idea how to start the next chapter and since I have three more exams (last week, promise) and then I leave for Rome (another week).  
> But thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commenting! (They really make my day.)

When Clint arrived at the Tower, it was obvious that this was a full assembly. Even Bruce was ready to go out. Clint ran his hand through his hair as he walked over to the captain. He had collected his bow and his quiver on his way over and a glove to cover up his metal hand. Steve frowned slightly when he noticed the extra glove, but he didn't mention it. It just wasn't the moment.

"Clint, good, you're here. We're dealing with a Hydra outbreak. Stark and Romanov are already out in the field, but they're barely handling it. They need your help - our help. You up for it?" Steve looked Clint up and down, he knew that the archer had only been cleared again a few days ago, but as he had told him, they needed all the help he needed.

Clint nodded and saluted mockingly, as he always did. "I'll get out there immediately, cap."

"Good. I'll be there with Banner before you even know it."

 

*

 

It really was hard down on the ground. Tony was shooting the last remaining Hydra agent, who was by then shouting random words - well, that was what it sounded like to Tony - but one look at Natasha told him that the words weren't as random as he thought. The read headed assassin had a look in his face that Tony didn't see too often. Her jaw was entirely tensed up and she had a determined look on her face.

"Romanov, do you know what this man is shouting?" Tony asked - he hated not knowing, so that's why he was asking. "I guess it means something to you."

"Triggers." Natasha replied. "They're trying to awaken the Hydra agent within me, trying to take control over me again. I'm too good not to have done something about them."

"That doesn't sound too good." Tony frowned as he heard that. "You're sure it's not a problem?"

"Do I look like I want to kill you more than I usually do?" She sounded rather sarcastic, but very much herself.

"Good. Very good." Tony got on to shouting the guy - but he was too good, he dodged all his attacks.

"Stark, Romanov, Clint is joining you in a minute. He's on his way now." Steve reported through the coms. "Banner and I are on our ways as well."

"Clint can't come here." Natasha said, abruptly. "Steve, you've got to stop Clint before he gets here."

"Well, bad luck, I'm already here." Clint said, through the same com line as the rest had been talking. A purple shafted arrow appeared next to the head of the Hydra agent. "Why can't I come here, Tasha?"

"Clint..." Natasha sighed. "Clint, you need to get out of here, we can handle it without you."

"Rogers said that I was needed here. I'm staying." Another arrow almost hit the agent. "Damnit, stop moving you bastard! "

"Clint -" Natasha started but she was interrupted by the agent, who was once more shouting the same trigger words over and over again, in a last, desperate attempt to get Natasha to cave.

But it wasn't the redheaded assassin who reacted this time. It was Clint. His eyes turned blank - Tony could see it from where he flew by - and he aimed again, but this time it was at the billionaire. "Shit!" Tony cursed. "What the hell just happened? Why is he shooting at me? I'm one of the good guys."

Something that sounded a lot like a snort came from Clint's side of the coms. "Good guys. Yeah right." The agent put down his bow and pulled out the two swords he always carried with him, just as a backup. He jumped down the building, moving faster than he had ever before with those swords ready.

"Clint!" Natasha shouted as she rushed over to him. "Clint you need to stop this. You're being triggered, this isn't you, not anymore."

"Natasha, I need an explanation here!" Tony shouted, the moment that Rogers and Banner arrived. There was pretty much general confusion. Between fighting Clint and the Hydra agent and the shock of Clint changing sides, the Hulk and Stark found the time to take out the bad guy.

With him defeated, everybody could focus on Clint. Natasha was fighting hand to hand with the archer, who was suddenly wielding swords like he had been doing it all his life instead of shooting the arrows.

"When did he learn to do that?" Tony demanded - he was tired of not getting any replies to his questions. Legolas was acting like someone he was not and Tony no longer wanted to be in the dark about these kinds of things.

"Long story." Romanov grunted. "Not the time."

Rogers threw his shield towards the archer and Clint hissed, dropping one of his swords. He stopped moving for a few seconds - Natasha stopped fighting him the moment he stopped, after all, she didn't want to hurt him - looked at everybody around him before he turned around and ran. He was even faster than Steve, which was saying something.

None of the Avengers made a move to follow the archer - most of them were too much in shock to react in any way. By the time that they started to run, Clint had disappeared already. So they just turned towards the only one who seemed to know what was going on. Natasha.

 

*

 

Phil looked up when the entire group of the Avengers walked in. He immediately searched for Clint, and when he didn't find him, he turned to Natasha, questions visible in his eyes. She shrugged before she sat down next to him on the bed.

"I could only barely stop them from demanding questions till I was here." The Widow said, matter-of-factly. "But something has happened. And you deserve to know, Phil. But so do they."

He frowned again. "What happened to Clint, Agent Romanov? Where is he?" His voice was filled with worry for the agent - or was it more than just worry?

"We were fighting a Hydra agent. He knew the triggers that were used in the Red Room and he was shouting them loudly, probably in an attempt to trigger me, to get me to back." She started to explain.

"But Clint arrived and then..." Phil sighed and ran his hands over his face. "Shit."

"Okay, this is just not fair. How come Agent knows what's happened when he wasn't even there?" Tony crossed his arms. "I want an explanation why Legolas started shooting me all of a sudden."

"Clint was in the Red Room with me." Natasha said, without an introduction, just out of the blue. And it caused chaos.

Tony started to shout, wanting to know why it hadn't showed up in the man's files. Captain America was trying to stop him - and that meant raising his voice as well. Banner was fighting the green in his eyes, hurt by the fact that one of his teammates didn't trust him enough to tell him something like this. Phil's heart rate was going up and up and up and the machines started beeping but everybody was still shouting and eventually Phil just stopped caring about his wound and shouted loudly. " _Shut up_!"

Both Steve and Tony turned towards the agent and fell quiet. They hadn't expected the man to shout that loudly, but Coulson wasn't really in his right mind. He had just received the news that his boyfriend had changed from a loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent into a Hydra soldier, who'd do anything he could to kill one of his teammates - and probably his boyfriend as well.

"You knew." Tony accused the agent - but Phil couldn't care less. "You knew and you didn't tell us? We deserved to know."

"He didn't want you to know." Natasha said. "I knew because I remembered him when I first saw him, in Budapest, but Phil didn't know until Clint was taken by Loki. I had to tell him because I thought that his Hydra programming had resurfaced that time. But apparently that wasn't the case." She sighed and looked down. "I was worried about him, I wanted to make sure that Phil knew."

"Why?" Tony was on a roll and Phil just wished that he could hit the man around the head, in an attempt to get him to shut up. "How is Agent different from any of us?"

"I'm his boyfriend." Phil crossed his arms. "That's how I'm different." He glared at the billionaire. "He sat by my bedside every single day until now. He was here earlier today, I had explained to him that I was fine with his past, that I knew that it was in his past, that he'd never act on that again. I also offered him that he could talk about it whenever he wanted and today was that day. He showed me some of the scars he got, well, one really. He has a metal hand, guys. His hand was cut off and replaced. He hated it and I was convinced that he was fine to go and face that Hydra agent or I wouldn't have let him go."

"I know this is all a shock to you, Stark, but accept it." Natasha stated. She was taking Phil's side on this. "You didn't know because this wasn't in any file. Nobody knew that Clint used to be Ronin."

 

*

 

Ronin found himself on top of a roof, holding a bow and a quiver on his back. He blinked confused for a single second before he shot an arrow at the red and golden blur that was flying in front of him. When he could hear the man's voice in his ear, he couldn't help but smirk and snort. He wasn't one of the good guys - and neither were they. He knew that people like that didn't get where they were by not killing. And he made it perfectly clear what he thought.

His smirk only got wider when he used the confusion to jump down - he abandoned the bow, he wasn't as good with it as he was with his swords - and started to fight this achingly familiar red head. He couldn't determine how he knew her, but he knew he did. He didn't reply when the demands for questions came - they called him Clint for some unknown reason - and just continued to fight - he needed to lose the com as soon as he could, they probably would be able to track him with it.

He was distracted for a millisecond when Captain America - he knew him because he was one of Hydra's biggest enemies - threw his shield at him. He dropped one of his swords, but the red head stopped fighting him as soon as he stopped, which made him think that they were close, the two of them - or at least used to be. There was once again a lot of confusion and questions, so he used the fact that nobody seemed to pay attention to him to run.

As soon as he was sure that nobody was following him anymore, he got the com unit out of his ear and destroyed it - the only way to stop the signal. He took off every sign that could mean that he was anything more than he really was. He lost the S.H.I.E.L.D. logos on his arms and the quiver. All he kept were his two swords, the two things that kept him on his feet, that had helped him survive all these years in the Hydra facility.

As soon as he was done with that, he went out and borrowed an iPad from an apple store close by before he returned to the place he had chosen for his safe house. He logged in on the Hydra network to let his superiors know where he was. Now all he could do was wait for orders.


	12. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way too long, I realize, but I had the trouble of a writer's block I had to get through. But now I think I've managed to write down what I wanted and I'll need to rearrange the next few chapters, but it'll be on his way, slowly but surely.  
> The Russian in this chapter is translated throughout the story. Also, I still don't speak that beautiful language, so any faults are due to google translate.  
> Thank you for reading, kudo'ing and commenting! It fills me with happiness. And the next update should come sooner. I hope.

Even after he had sent the Avengers out in the world again to find Clint again and bring him back in, Phil couldn't stop thinking about the archer. He was trying to figure out what had happened the day they had met, now already a couple of years ago. Time went so fast sometimes. He couldn't believe that Clint had been in his life for so long now and it was only now that he was gone that he realized how much exactly he cared about his archer.

He didn't want to think about what would happen if the Avengers wouldn't be able to bring back Clint, if he had lost Clint forever to this Ronin man that was inside him. But it had happened once before, that Clint had pushed Ronin away from him into some dark corner of his mind. This thought filled him with hope, because if Clint had fought and won before, he could do it again.

But he was stuck in a hospital bed because he'd been stupid enough to take on Loki, even when it was under Fury's orders. He wished he could get out of there, that he could get out of the bed and back into the field. He tried not to think about how things could've been different if he had told Fury not to mess with the Tessaract, about how it would've been different if Clint hadn't been assigned to that mission.

His heart rate was going up fast enough that the nurses were alerted and rushed into his room. They found him whispering Clint's name over and over again, curled up around himself. They gave him a sedative - it seemed like the kindest thing to do at that time - and put him to sleep.

 

*

 

When Phil woke up again, Natasha was sitting next to his bed, looking at a tablet. He coughed softly to get her attention. She smiled at him as she put the tablet away.

"How are you feeling, Coulson?" She asked, her voice soft.

_How am I feeling?_ The agent thought. _Well, I miss Clint, but he's god knows where, killing people, getting orders from Hydra. He probably doesn't remember me at all anyway, so what's the point of staying here at all?_

"I'm feeling okay, I suppose." He didn't say what he was thinking though, because he knew that it would only upset Natasha and make her more worried about him than she already was.

It was pretty obvious that the Widow didn't quite believe the lie that he had uttered. She frowned before lifting an eyebrow and looking a bit closer at the agent. "And now the truth, please, Coulson. Don't forget there's only one person who knows you better than me."

Phil was about to ask who that was, who knew him better than her, but the moment he opened his mouth to ask, he knew the answer. _Clint_. _Of course it was Clint_. "Really, I feel rather okay, considering the circumstances."

"You miss him, don't you?" She asked, even though the answer was fairly obvious. "What would you give to get him back?"

"I'd give anything." Coulson's voice broke only ever so slightly, but it was enough for Natasha to hear it. "I'd give absolutely anything to get Clint back." He whispered.

"We'll find him again." She promised him. "We'll find him and get him back to you. But in the meantime, I need to tell you something about him."

"I already know that he's Ronin." Phil sighed. "I already know that unless we find a way to block out the Hydra soldier again, then I will never get him back." He buried his face in his hands. "And I don't... I don't want to lose him."

"Phil, you should really listen to me before you get to your own conclusions." Natasha sounded only mildly desperate. "I have things to tell you that you don't know yet. I know that you want him back, but please be patient, alright? We... The Avengers and I, we'll get him back. Because we have one advantage on him, one thing that Clint doesn't know about."

Phil looked up at her, a mild frown on his face. "What the hell are you talking about?" What the hell is there that Natasha could possibly know that he didn't. "Wait... You... In Budapest. You recognized him. You knew him before he became Clint, you knew him when he was still Ronin."

Natasha looked down before she nodded. "Yes. We were... He was the only boy in the Red Room."

It all seemed to fit in his mind. "Oh, so that's..." That's why Clint could fight better than anyone else, that's why Clint could be so easily erased. "There must be a way to shut him down, right? Natasha? There must be a way for him to be rush down?"

The Black Widow nodded. "Yes. But... The words must be said by someone he trusts. Completely."

"He trusts you. Because he already knew you before you met again. So... Why don't you go over to wherever he is, there must be a way for us to find out."

The woman nodded. "Yes, I will try, but... There's a chance that I might fail. In that case, you'll have to try, Phil. You are his last chance."

The Agent nodded slowly. "But I know that you are going to do anything and everything to bring him back. I trust _you_ , completely, too."

 

*

 

"I've found him." Stark said, looking up from his laptop. "He logged into the Hydra net, but that has been deactivated three years ago. Which he wouldn't know, of course, since he was Clint for the last couple of years. Romanov, you know how to get him back right?"

"For the twentieth time, Stark, I do. Now just tell me where he is so that we can all go out there and at least _try_ to get our friend back?" She sounded annoyed and impatient, a tone she had used ever since she had returned from her visit to Coulson at the hospital.

"Natasha..." Bruce sounded like he was going to give up on the two of them. "Tony, stop arguing and let's just get on with it. We all need Clint and the last thing we need is you two fighting."

Both Natasha and Stark glared at the doctor. "Stark, where is Clint - I mean, Ronin - right now? We need to get to him as soon as we can, before we have the bad luck that one of Hydra's assets checks the network one last time and sees Clint's message."

"I can try to log in on the network and delete it." Stark offered. "It could take a while though. Half an hour to a full hour."

"No, we need you in the field, Stark." Steve now intervened with the conversation. "We can't afford to lost him and if that means getting Hydra on our tail, then I'd rather have to take them out than lose an hour now and give Ronin the chance to escape."

Stark nodded. "I'll get Jarvis on it then." He quickly programmed something before turning to the other Avengers. "Come on, time to go and get our friend back."

 

*

 

It wasn't hard to find Clint. Natasha was kind of suspicious about how easy it had been to find her best friend. She knew that he wanted to be found, that he wanted them off his trail before he'd disappear. That was exactly what she told the other Avengers in words that left nothing to the imagination as they stood in front of the safe house Clint - she really had to start calling him Ronin again - was in right now.

"You're sure he's inside?" Stark's metallic voice came from inside the Iron Man suit. "We're not on the wrong address or something?"

The man hadn't even finished his sentence before a voice shouted at them from the top of the roof. "Hey! Can't you leave a man alone to do his work?" It was a voice that Natasha would recognize anywhere. _Clint_.

"We'll never leave you alone, Clint. You're our friend and you always will be!" It was Steve who was shouting at the rooftop, even though he couldn't see where Cli-Ronin was exactly.

The figure who did appear on top of the roof was nothing like the archer they were used to. Instead of his ever present bow, the man had two swords strapped to his back - he had one in his right hand, a gun in his left - and he had lost everything that could remind them of his time at S.H.I.E.L.D. He was dressed completely in black with golden accents - the same uniform he'd been wearing back when he was still an asset of the Red Room - and a hood over his head.

"Who's this Clint you keep talking to? I'm pretty sure there's nobody called Clint up here." The voice had a cold, darker edge, and if she was listening closely, she could hear something emotionless seeping through. Just like they had taught them. She knew the exact moment when the swordsman recognized her, because there was a slight hesitation before he continued, this time in Russian. "вдова, это ты?" _Widow, is that you?_

Steve and Banner looked confused at the widow - Tony had Jarvis translate it for him, luckily enough - who didn't say a single word to them. "Да... Yes, it's me, Ronin." She hated the name just as much as the rest did, but if she wanted to gain his trust, she'd have to act as someone undercover. She wasn't sure how that was going to work out.

"What are you doing with them?" Ronin continued in flawless Russian. "Have you betrayed the cause? Or are you undercover, here to pick me up?"

"Ronin, you remember me right?" She didn't need to hear the scoff to know the man's reaction. "Do you trust me?" This was the tricky part, this was where she had to wait, where she had to hope that he'd see her as an ally.

There was a silence coming from the roof and Natasha took it as a _yes_. "I need you to listen to me very carefully, Ronin." It was only now that she switched over to Russian, to gain his trust. "I'm going to say something to you and I want you to remember it very carefully."

"Romanov, what the hell are you doing?" Stark hissed at her. "Whatever you're trying to do, it won't work."

"I have to try." She hissed back. "I have to, for Phil." After that, she continued in Russian. "Ronin, I have an order for you. It's a single word, but you need to remember it very carefully."

"Just get on with it already!" Clint called from up the roof. "Tell me what you have to say!"

"спутник." The redhead shouted loudly. She repeated it, over and over, hoping that it would have some sort of effect. _Sputnik_.

"Should that mean something?" The Widow knew she'd failed the moment she heard his smirk coming from upstairs. "Because it sure doesn't ring any bells."

Natasha cursed in Russian to herself and that earned her a glare from Stark. "Didn't work?" She didn't need to know whose voice it was that drifted towards her, the scowl on her face told the man enough.

"What now?" It was Stark who was talking to her, she now recognized. "What should we do now?"

She was glad that the man was asking her for what they should do, that meant that they didn't know too much about the Red Room, about her past. She didn't want anyone to know about the ways she grew up.

"Now we run."

 

*

 

Ronin had been expecting a fight when he had seen the Avengers turn up in front of his safe house. He hadn't gotten any feedback from his superiors at Hydra, but that didn't mean that he had no idea what to do should he be attacked by others. So he'd been prepared to fight for his life, to fight to escape the clutches from evil S.H.I.E.L.D. He was surprised when - after their brief conversation - they had simply left, turned around, ran away, with their tails between their legs.

He decided not to pay attention to them - after all, they were no longer a thread to him or Hydra - and went back to hiding. He realized that he needed to find a new safe house, that he'd need to upload a new message to the Hydra net if he wanted to be picked up. He was pretty sure most Hydra bases he'd known would've been moved by now.

So he packed his stuff, put it all in the small bag he had stolen from one of the merchants he'd seen on the street - it wasn't like they're notice him, he was way too fast - and the weapons on his person. Once he'd done that, he pulled out the laptop he had brought with him from the fight - it had already been on his person, surprisingly enough - and researched empty buildings in the neighbourhood.

He left the laptop there, in that one building, before making his way over to his new safe house. He arrived before anyone could even spot him in the streets.


	13. Chapter 12

Three weeks after the failed attempt to get Clint back, Phil was finally released from the hospital. He still had to rest most of the day and he was technically not allowed to go to work yet, but the doctor knew, the moment he said it, that Phil wasn't going to follow that Doctor's order. And true enough, the next day, Phil arrived at SHIELD HQ, calling the Avengers together once again. He needed their help.

"Right, Agent, so what's the plan?" Stark said, leaning back against Phil's desk. Coulson himself was pacing the room, followed by every pair of eyes in the room. "You've got a plan, right?"

"Of course I've got a plan." The senior agent huffed. _Just_ _not a very sensible one_.

"What is it then?" Steve asked, frowning. Phil didn't have to shake away the amazement, like he had had to do when the two of them had first met. No, now he was focussed on getting his lover back.

"We find out where he is-" _How are we going to do_ that? "-and we're going to get him to talk to us. We need to let him know that we're not giving up on him. He's our friend. And if there's someone whose back we've got, it's our friends'."

Sounds of agreement came from the other Avengers, but it was Bruce who voiced it. "You certainly never gave up on me. And neither did Clint. I'm doing it for him."

"Jeez, Banner, so serious." Stark tried to joke it awake, but everybody glared at the man.

"So, as I was saying, we're going to find him and we're going to try the same as we did three weeks ago. Only this time, I'm going to be speaking the word."

There was a brief silence before Natasha opened her mouth. "Do you think it's going to work?"

Phil looked down, running a hand through his hair. "I have to believe it will. I can't... I can't lose my Clint, he means so much to me." He wasn't going to have a breakdown in front of the Avengers. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. "I know that it will work, that Clint will come back to me."

To everybody's surprise, it was Stark who placed a hand on Phil's shoulder. The agent looked up, but Stark smiled reassuringly. "You'll get him back. I'll do anything and everything to help you." After a deep breath, he continued. "I know that you would do anything you could if something like this would happen to Pepper."

Phil looked up, throwing an appreciative look at Stark. "Thanks, Tony."

That got him a nod before Stark walked out of the room, followed by the others and eventually by Phil as well. The agent had a wide smile around his lips. He would get his archer back, he knew he would. He had these great friends as his allies. This was going to turn out alright.

 

*

 

Ronin should've known that that group of misfits would come back. They had obviously known him from somewhere - well, of course he had recognized the Widow, but not the others. Maybe they had known the baby boy, the kid who had been abandoned by everybody he cared about. What was his name again? Clint, wasn't it? He shook his head. That boy was dead to him and had been dead for years now. He was Ronin and that was all he was ever going to be.

He was sure that he had done absolutely anything and everything he could so that nobody would be able to find him - he didn't have any electronic devices turned on, he had made sure that he had avoided all the camera's on the street and he was absolutely positive that nobody had seen him - and yet somehow the group that was called the Avengers - he knew about them, he wasn't an idiot - had managed to find him. He could hear them trying to get in, so he grabbed one of his swords and hid behind the door. They were coming up the stairs, banging in every door to check the rooms, to see if he was in there. Well, they were in for a treat.

Ronin had hidden himself on the top floor, mainly because he liked being close to the sky, but also because that way it would take the longest time for them to find him. He held on tightly on his sword as he counted the floors. _Three floors left. Two. One_. _Here they come_!

The door banged open with a loud noise, immediately followed by Stark - how did he even know his name? - who was scanning the room. Ronin thought that he could hear a British voice inform the man in the red and golden suit that someone was hiding behind the door, but that could've been his imagination. The fact that the billionaire immediately turned towards him and closed the door again, told him that it hadn't been.

"Clint..." The metallic voice said. "You're here. Do you know ho-" Ronin swung his sword at the Iron Man, but it bounced off his armour. Damn it, this was an enemy he probably wouldn't be able to take down. "Hey! Did you just try to kill me?" The man turned to the others, who had walked inside the room as well. "He tried to kill me!"

"Stop being so dramatic, Stark." The Widow rolled her eyes at the engineer. Ronin took the opportunity to sneak away from the armoured man, hoping that he'd make it before anyone noticed that he was trying to escape. He briefly locked eyes with the Widow, who shook her head at him.

What could that mean? Ronin wondered. _No, you're not going to get away?_ Or _You're an idiot for even trying to attack my friend_. Probably a mix of both, because the moment he broke eye contact, she spoke up. "You're not going anywhere, Clint."

He turned around, holding his sword ready to defend himself as he was going to answer with some sort of snappy and sassy reply. But before he could even open his mouth, she jumped over and onto him, pinning him to the ground before he could react. "You never were a match for me." She smirked down at him.

"I never even tried." He snarled in reply, glaring at the woman on top of him.

"Excuses, excuses." The Widow's smirk grew wider, but a cough from a balding man - he seemed familiar to him, did he know him from somewhere? - made her turn her head towards him. "'m sorry, sir." She let go of Ronin and stepped aside so that the man could take her place. Well, more or less, he didn't pin him to the ground as the Widow had done, but in his own way, he blocked every way Ronin could take.

As he laid there, looking up at the balding man, he just couldn't shake off the feeling that he knew him, that he trusted him. He frowned and pushed himself up on his elbows. "Do I know you?" He asked - he tried to make it a snarl, but the curiosity was too obvious.

The man smiled at Ronin and somehow, it made his heart flutter and his stomach twist and turn. What the hell was going on with him?

"Yes, Clint, you do. My name is Agent Coulson. But you know me as Phil."

_Phil_. The name did sound familiar - hell, everything about this man was familiar to him somehow. "I can't remember you." He said eventually - which was the truth. He sat up and looked up at the man, frowning deeply. He was incredibly confused, but he couldn't seem to figure out how he knew this man and why he couldn't remember him.

"I used to be your handler." Coulson - no, _Phil_ \- said softly. "We were in a team together, you, me and Natasha." He gestured at the Widow. "You worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., Clint, but then an accident happened. We lost track of you during a battle and then there was this Hydra agent..." He sighed. "When we found you again, we were too late. But we're here again, we're going to figure out how we can help you."

"What if I don't need any help?" Ronin snapped. "What if I don't want to remember you again?"

Phil stepped back, a hurt expression on his face. "I've still got to try, Clint. I can't let you be this wrong version of yourself without having a choice."

The fact that this man, this agent, wasn't giving up on him just because he was ruse and impolite told him more than enough. The trust in this man only seemed to grow. And that was weird. He had never trusted anyone in his life, at least not that he could remember.

He didn't even realize that Phil was speaking again until the agent grabbed his cheeks and forced him to look at him. "Do you trust me?" Phil asked, his voice soft. "Clint Francis Barton, do you trust me?"

Even though it wasn't his name, he couldn't help but nod. He trusted this man pretty unconditionally - which was something he had never experienced before.

Phil nodded, a smile forming around his lips. "Sputnik."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the cliffhanger. Well, I'm not really, but... Heh. Anyway, I'm currently writing the next chapter (I kind of found my muse back) so sometime next week the next chapter should come out. After that, there's only the epilogue left. So close now. So close.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, kudoing and commenting, I hope you liked it.


	14. Epilogue

When Clint came back to it, he found himself in a S.H.I.E.L.D. med bay. He groaned to himself. "Aww, no... Not the med bay..." He pushed himself up on the bed and ran a hand through his hair. What the hell had happened? Last thing he remembered was arriving where that Hydra agent had been shouting and shooting at his friends and Natasha telling him that he couldn't be there. How had he ended up here? Did he get shot? No, a quick scan of his body told him that he was perfectly fine - well, he wasn't hurt more than he usually was. Then why was he here?

One of the nurses noticed him sitting up and walked over to him, smiling warmly. "Welcome back, Agent Barton. How are you feeling?"

Clint smiled back, he knew her. Her name was Suzy - he had been in the med bay often enough to know the names of everybody who works there. "I'm feeling pretty well." Clint said, shrugging slightly. "I don't remember much though."

"What do you remember?" Suzy narrowed her eyes slightly at him, as if this was all a test. "You've been out for quite a while."

"Err..." Clint scratched the back of his neck as he tried to think about the last couple of days. "Well, earlier today, I was sent to assist the rest of the Avengers against a Hydra agent and after..." he frowned. "And... I can't really remember anything else..." He looked up at the nurse, straight into her eyes. "What the hell happened?"

"You were out for three weeks and a half." Coulson had walked into the med back and walked over to Clint's bed with a smile around his lips. "But I'm glad your back now."

Clint could feel that there was more to the story, but right now, he was glad to see Phil again. He pushed himself up on the bed, got out and pulled the agent in his arms. He grinned briefly before stealing a soft kiss. "Well then, I'll have to make up for three weeks of missing you then, I suppose." He chuckled softly against the agent's lips.

"Hmm, Clint, it's a bit more serious than that." Phil hummed as he wrapped his arms around the archer's waist.

"Tell me, Phil." He hummed softly. "Tell me what happened? I want to know."

Phil grew quiet and even moved slightly away from him, which made Clint frown. Phil whispered something so quiet that the archer wasn't too sure what it was, but he thought that Coulson was telling him that he didn't want to know what happened.

"Phil..." Clint mumbled softly, reaching out for his boyfriend. "Please... I need to know."

The agent took a deep breath before he nodded. He guided Clint back to the bed and set him down on it, joining him briefly after. "It's a bit of a long story." He started before he told him everything that happened.

Clint listened patiently, taking in everything Coulson was saying. Once the agent was done the archer was staring at his hands, not saying anything anymore. This was all his fault. The fact that Phil got hurt, all those other agents of SHIELD... He was the one who harmed them all.

"It's not your fault, Clint." Phil said, placing his hands on the archer's shoulder, as if he could read his mind. "You didn't know what you were doing and I know you tried to stop, but... There was just nothing you could do."

"Do you really think that's going to make me feel better?!" Clint jumped up and turned towards Coulson. "Do you really think that I can just forget all the things that I've done?" He ran his hands through his hair and grabbed it tightly, almost pulling it out.

"I'm only trying to help." Phil got up as well, looking at his lover. "I'm trying to make you feel better the only way I know."

"Well, _don't_!" Clint snapped, even though he knew that - like Phil had said himself - he was only trying to help him, make him feel better. But that wasn't how things worked in his head, things weren't forgotten, just because someone tells someone else that it's okay, that it wasn't their fault. "I need some air." He hissed as he stormed out of the med bay. He needed to get out before he hurt anyone else.

 

*

 

Phil stared at Clint as he stormed out of the med bay, ignoring all the doctors who tried to stop him. He had just tried to help, tried to make Clint feel better and then this happened. Clint running away somehow hurt more than seeing his face, twisted in a smirk, shooting him. He wanted to talk to him, to make sure that he was fine, but he also wanted to respect him and give him some time alone to figure things out.

The fact that he wanted to respect Clint's wishes didn't mean that he had to like it. He had missed him for so long, all he wanted now was to kiss and make up again. He simply wanted to pull him in his arms, holding him close, making sure that he was alright. He sat down on the bed again and closed his eyes.

He imagined what it could've been like, their reunion, if he hadn't messed stuff up. They could've shared kiss after kiss, holding each other tight and telling each other that they loved one another. They could've annoyed the doctors together by not being quiet and risking Clint's health. But all those things didn't happen, just because he bloody messed things up.

Now all he could do was wait and hope that Clint would come back to him.

 

*

 

Clint didn't talk to Phil for weeks - in fact, he didn't talk to anyone. He was on temporary leave - Fury had made it quite clear that it was not an option to say no - and had retreated to his own little flat in a part of New York where Phil - or any other of the Avengers - never came anyway. It wasn't their kind of neighbourhood.

So Clint just enjoyed the silence all on his own. He would find a way to be able to live with what he had done. But being alone didn't really help - he only figured that out after three weeks - so he returned to the Avengers Tower, his proverbial tail between his legs. He ignored Jarvis' voice greeting him and walked straight to Phil's floor where he knocked on the door. (He knew Phil's password to his calendar from before and Coulson never changed his passwords, so he knew that he was there.)

He pretended not to hear the footsteps running to the door. He pretended that Phil did not pull the door open as fast as he could. He pretended that Phil did not pull him into a tight hug as if he hadn't seen him in ages. And he definitely didn't burry his face in Coulson's shoulder either.

"Clint..." He whispered softly. "You're back." He smiled as he gently cupped his cheek.

"I'm sorry..." Clint whispered softly, for many different reasons. He didn't want Phil to hear him because he was ashamed of what he had done. He was ashamed of being so easily turned back into Ronin, the man he had forgotten so easily before, the man he had buried deep inside. He was also ashamed of running away from him, from his responsibilities. He shouldn't have done that. He should've stayed with Phil and let the man help him.

"Clinton Francis Barton." Phil said as he took Clint's cheeks in his hand and forced him to look at him. "Don't you dare be sorry for this. It wasn't your fault. This was something that happened to you and there was nothing that you could've done to stop it."

"I should've come to you immediately." He mumbled, as if he hadn't heard Phil at all. "I shouldn't have stayed at my place for three weeks."

"You needed your time." He said softly. "I don't blame you for anything you did."

"Easy for you to say." Clint grumbled softly. "You weren't locked up and prodded to see if there was still a hint of Hydra left."

"I know that I have no idea what you went through, Clint, but please don't push me away. I still love you. And I always will love you. That's a promise." He said softly before he tried to pull the archer in for a kiss.

But Clint subtly dodged the kiss, shaking his head as he placed a hand on the agent's chest to keep some distance between him and the man. "I... I still love you too, Phil, but we can't. I can't just go on the way we were before. Too much happened."

Coulson tried his best not to look disappointed, but he nodded. "Yes, of course. We can slowly begin again, we can slowly try dating again first." He smiled softly at Clint, hoping that this would actually convince the man to stay with him.

"That sounds... Yeah, I think I'd like that." A small smile found its way around the archer's lips. "I think I'd love to try that again." And then, he moved his hand away and allowed the agent to kiss him.

 

*

 

Four years later, Natasha found an invitation in her mailbox.

 

_Mr. Barton and Agent Coulson would like to invite you to their wedding._

 

"About damn time." She mumbled to herself. "About damn time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it was. My story. And I know it took way too long to finish, but thank you for sticking with it! I've gone through quite a lot of fandom changes while writing this, so I have no idea what my next project will be. I can only hope that you'll be there to discover it with me.
> 
> And for the last time in this story, thank you for reading, kudoing and commenting. I hope you enjoyed it.


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